Judging Freedom - * [Must Watch] - COL KAREN Kwiatkowski: US Planned to Invade Russia
Episode Date: August 28, 2024* [Must Watch] - COL KAREN Kwiatkowski: US Planned to Invade RussiaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-in...fo.
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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, August 27th, 2024.
Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski joins us now.
Colonel Kwiatkowski, a pleasure.
Thank you very much for your help. A lot to talk to you about. Big picture propaganda. Is propaganda itself an element to be
achieved in modern warfare? It is a part. It is a part of warfare. And I don't think just modern, you know, influencing what people believe, both the other army that you're against or your people back home, the enemy population.
I think propaganda is a key part of, you know, battle and conflict and trying to enforce your will on a party that doesn't want that will enforced.
So it is part of it. Yeah. I mean, it's a very human thing to do.
Our friend and colleague Alistair Crook argues that he agrees with you. And in the case
of Israel, we will get to Kursk and the involvement of U.S. intelligence community and a wonderful interview
you recently gave with Sputnik in a moment. But Alistair argues that an essential part
of the Netanyahu government's propaganda is aimed at the Israeli public as well as the rest of the
world. Isn't it pretty clear that he has lost the propaganda war around the world? He's only
got the United States with him. Yeah, it's obvious. It's obvious that he's lost it. He knows this.
I think a lot of people in Israel, people and politicians, they're very, very concerned because
you need friends. When you're a little country that's doing nasty things, you need friends.
And the more friends, the better. nasty things, you need friends. And the
more friends, the better, the more supporters, the better. And Israel's down to one. And that
one is the United States, which also has grown enemies. You know, we haven't created friends
in the past 20 years. We've created enemies. So we're not popular either. Neither is our money.
So, yeah, Israel should be very concerned. And I think they are. I don't know what the solution is going to be, but they're very concerned. Israel, 500 flights in nine months of the war.
You can see how vital USAID is to this Israeli onslaught.
So Sunday morning in the wee hours of the morning before the sun came up,
which is an important part of what we're now about to discuss,
the Hezbollah fired rockets and drones at Israel,
and Israel fired back.
It only went on for 20 minutes, and then it stopped.
Here's what Prime Minister Netanyahu said a few hours later in the morning
on Sunday morning, August 25th, cut number 12.
What happened today is not the end of the verse.
Hezbollah tried to attack the state of Israel with rockets and drones early in the morning.
We instructed the IDF to carry out a powerful preemptive strike to remove the threat.
The IDF destroyed thousands of short-range rockets,
and they were all intended to harm our citizens and our forces in the Galilee.
In addition, the IDF intercepted all the UAVs that Hezbollah launched for a strategic purpose
in the center of the country. We are hitting Hezbollah with surprising thrusts. Three weeks ago,
we eliminated his chief of staff, and today we foiled his attack plan.
Nezrala in Beirut and Kamene in Tehran should know that this is another step on the way to
change the situation on the north and return our residents safely to their homes. And I repeat, this is not the end of the story.
Now that was the only source of information that the Israeli public had emanating from Israel
because shortly after whatever happened in this 20-minute period happened,
and before he made that statement, Prime minister netanyahu and his government put
total censorship i don't know how they can do this in the modern era they did it total censorship on
uh reporting what happened in the uh conflagration between the two here is our colleague and friend
alistair crook yesterday on this show explaining what
happened. Cut number 13. One of the reasons we can't give more detail of this is immediately
at five o'clock in the morning, the Israeli government issued an absolute ban on any reporting
of any damage or any attacks. A complete censor was imposed on what happened in Tel Aviv,
what happened at the air base, which they also attacked,
which is where the drones flew from.
Absolute ban, no reporting, no photographs, no visuals.
And so they put a complete blackout on any news of any damage
to any infrastructure, any defense sites, or
to the intelligence bases in Tel Aviv.
Does a sophisticated society like Israel tolerate a total ban on news?
Presumably not good news.
If it were good for the Israelis, the government wouldn't put a ban on it.
Yeah, that's true.
Clearly, you know, whenever there's information bans or attempts by governments to shape information,
it means that they're afraid of what's out there.
They're afraid of the possibility of counter narratives or just facts, truthful evidence.
They don't like it.
So, you know, we know governments are kind of like
criminal elements, really. They're criminal gangs. And criminal gangs, they fear exposure.
Okay. They fear evidence that shows they did something wrong or they're guilty. So these
governments are criminal gangs. And clearly he's got it under control in Israel. But I think many Israelis,
I mean, they're sophisticated people. They are well read and, you know, they're internationalist
in many ways, including the Israelis that live abroad from Israel. And so they're paying
attention to information. This idea that he's going to be able to freeze access to information for very long for everyone, it's really a short
term thing, even for the best controllers, you know, like Netanyahu must imagine himself to be.
Ah, but he has friends in the media, because I'm going to put this in front of my face.
This is the front page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal, which purports to show an Israeli Iron Dome rocket destroying a Hezbollah missile.
And the same photograph, a smaller version of it, was on the front page of The New York Times.
That photograph of Crane Alistair Crook is a year old. That photograph was taken in the daytime, and this 20-minute conflagration
between Hezbollah and the IDF occurred in the pitch dark of night. So who does Netanyahu and
the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times think they're kidding? It's crazy. I mean,
they are one and the same, apparently. They get the information from
the same sources. They march to the same drummer. But I don't think they're very aware that the
rest of the world is very exposed to many bits of information and many alternative narratives.
You know, it really makes them look more foolish than anything else. And certainly the American media
clearly is not doing its job unless their job is to do as Netanyahu advises them to do. If that's
the case, they are doing their job. But I don't think many Americans feel that that's what our
major newspapers should be doing. It's a joke on them, really. I mean, it's a sad state of affairs. And again,
this is why the newspapers are so concerned, and the governments that rely on those newspapers
to shape their own government narrative. They're so concerned about things like Telegram, like
Elon Musk buying Twitter. You know, they cannot tolerate, you know, people actually doing what people do. about Pearl Harbor, still hides what we knew about 9-11, still hides what we knew about and know
about the JFK and RFK assassinations. There's no limit to what these governments, whether they're
criminal gangs that purport to be democratically elected, lowercase d or not, they still continue
to hide the truth. But I couldn't resist this one because we caught them red-handed
with an old photo taken in the daytime, and Alistair Crook put his finger right on it.
In your interview with Sputnik, you were asked if the United States helped to plan the invasion of Russia. Did it?
Well, I believe that we had foreknowledge, and certainly we know that our equipment
and our communications and our intelligence, our surveillance data is all made available
as requested. You know, if it's sub-regional or targeted data, that information is made available by our
government to the Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian politicians if they ask for it. So we are involved
in Ukraine, basically like the pig is involved in breakfast. We are in it. We are part of it.
So, yeah, I'd be very, very surprised if we had no foreknowledge. And I think that it was something that they cleared with military leaders and strategists, even in
the Pentagon, who the Pentagon says, oh, no, we were surprised. We didn't know anything. We're
waiting to see what happens. Yeah, I bet they are. But, you know, yes, clearly we're involved in it.
We also are. Go ahead, Karen. We're also involved in it with Americans. I mean,
we have American mercenaries and American volunteers and other NATO military on the ground
participating in this Kursk invasion that happened, I guess, a few weeks ago.
Yeah. So there's no way we are not a part of this. And this game that we're playing that,
oh, it's all Ukrainian. We give them all these that we're playing that, oh, it's all Ukrainian,
we give them all these weapons and we tell them, oh, don't do this, don't do that.
But it's really the final decision belongs to Zelensky.
That's our policy because, you know, we respect Zelensky.
Give me a break.
We will, if you don't mind, make a mini cut of your phrase,
like the pig is involved in breakfast, if you know,
and we'll post that on videos, which sometimes do go viral. And we mentioned Telegram. You can't
overlook the fact that the president, chair, and principal owner of Telegram, was just arrested in Paris because the French and
the Americans can't stand what is articulated freely on Telegram. And Chris reminds me that
in a recent interview with my friend and former Fox colleague, Tucker Carlson, the Telegram founder,
said that the U.S. government has been spying on him for years and even recently attempted
to hire away his chief engineer who refused to leave. This gets back to what you were saying
earlier. Governments hate and fear the truth, and they don't want people talking about the truth.
That's right. Dimitri Symes, Scott Ritter, Pavel, name escaping me, forgive me, the founder of Tel Aviv.
Pavel Kurov, yeah.
Correct, correct.
Does any of this surprise you, Lieutenant Colonel Kwiatkowski?
Well, the desperation of these governments does surprise me a little bit because generally they like to go
slow and silent if they can in inhibiting free speech, inhibiting communications that they don't
like. You know, for years, the NSA spied on Americans, but people didn't know that. People
didn't think about it. So it wasn't an issue. And then Snowden relayed to everybody that, oh, yeah, yeah, that's happening.
Not only is it happening, it's a major target of NSA mission.
And they have many customers in the government that want that information.
So then we say, oh, well, the government does that. They spy.
So we've kind of accepted it, but they like it better if we don't talk about it. And when they arrest guys like Pavel Durev, who they have, there's a
billion, almost a billion users of Telegram around the world. And they use it for a lot of different
things, sharing information, business, all kinds of things. But those billions of people,
that's a desperate move. That is an unfortunate thing that they've done because backing away from that cannot, there is no good outcome here for the government that arrested, for either the French, for Macron, or for the Americans who were behind it. because there's two things you can get on Telegram wonderfully and really in an uninhibited, direct, honest way.
And that is video of what's happening in Ukraine and video of what's happening in Gaza.
These are things you get on a daily basis. If you want to see them, they're out there and it's commented on.
So it's self-checked by others. If people if someone, you know, it has that self-correcting mechanism that
decentralized systems have. Anyway, Netanyahu doesn't like it. Biden doesn't like it. Harris
doesn't like it. Macron doesn't like it. But once they've taken for six days or five days,
I don't know how long they're going to keep Pavel detained without charges, or maybe they'll charge him and throw him in jail.
But once they do that, getting out of it, it's a lose-lose situation for the governments,
because they are either evil, free speech hating, unfair organizations, which we know them to be,
or they made a terrible mistake because they are listening to bad people. And by that, I mean Netanyahu,
Zelensky, you name it. There's plenty of bad government people that really, really, really
want Telegram down. They want it finished. But there's no good win out of this. So that's why
I think it stinks and reeks of desperation on the government's part. You know, when you go do
something, you need to have not
only a plan B, but you need to have an exit strategy that works for your interests. And
the government doesn't have that when they arrest people like this. And, you know, we saw this. We
saw this to some extent with Julian Assange. Very, very difficult for the governments. Once they had committed and made their point that
they can't tolerate WikiLeaks, they can't tolerate journalism, and they went after this guy,
how long did he have to stay? How long was he in prison between the Ecuadorian embassy and Belmarsh?
15 years almost? But that wasn't necessary. But they had no exit strategy. They had no political exit
strategy that would save government face. And they don't have one with Pavlodurov either.
And this is a sign of government desperation. Do you and your intelligence community veteran
colleagues openly acknowledge, and do any of your colleagues still in the intelligence community
acknowledge that this incursion into Russia absolutely positively could not have happened
without the knowledge, consent, approval, and preparation provided by MI6 and CIA?
I think that the assessment is that it could not have happened without American and,
of course, British help, at the very minimum, intelligence. But also, we, the Americans,
the DOD, the people working with Ukraine, we're watching them almost as closely as the Russians
are. So this idea that, oh, the Russians weren't prepared for this, but they
could have been because troop movements were happening. Who was looking at those troop
movements? The Americans were looking at the troop. NATO was looking at the troop movements.
The UK was looking at the troop movements. So we certainly were aware of it. Secondly, Zelensky is a person who I think actually does worry some Western leaders.
He is also exceptionally desperate.
The time frame, the length of time for his political survival, that window is closing.
He knows it and everybody else knows it.
So that drives desperation. That means that we are even more worried about Zelensky's
leadership and things that he might do as this window closes. And part of it is the US election,
but also part of it is Germany isn't going to give him any more aid. NATO's broke.
So yeah, we definitely had a role to play here. And also this whole war, don't forget, you know, we know,
you know, but Americans need to understand this entire activity in Ukraine against Russia was
driven by the United States, particularly the United States State Department under, let's name
him Obama. So, you know, this is, this know, this is an American agenda item.
Do you think we're not watching?
We're not participating?
Take a look at this headline from a piece by Politico.
Ukraine uses Kursk's success to press Biden on lifting weapons of restrictions.
Ukraine's invasion of Russia has flipped the gloomy narrative on the war,
and Kyiv is using its battlefield success, I'm reading this literally, to launch a new pressure
campaign on the U.S. to lift the last restrictions on the use of long-range weapons inside Russia.
Our friend and colleague Matt Ho takes this one step further and believes that Zelensky and company now think that
Kamala Harris will defeat Donald Trump, and all they have to do is stay alive until after
election day, because no Trump is going to come in to pull the plug. She's going to come in and
give them as much or more than Biden has been giving them.
And all of this was behind the Korsk invasion. What do you say?
Yeah, I mean, clearly the Korsk invasion was done to shift a dynamic, because that dynamic is not
good for Ukraine, and the coming dynamic is not good for Ukraine. America is losing interest.
NATO can't afford it. So how do you shift that dynamic? Well, a very desperate invasion and a very unimportant part
of, well, I shouldn't say unimportant because there's a nuclear power station there, but a
small little piece of Russia they invaded very rapidly. People say ingeniously, perhaps, but
they can't hold the property. They already haven't. They've
already been pushed back. It also didn't have the tactical response that they expected, which was
that it would take the pressure off other parts of the front as Russia, you know, surged forces
in to fight them off in Kursk. So that didn't work. But the political thing, keeping Ukraine alive as an agenda item just until November 5th, you know, so they can rest easy if Kamala is elected and then it'll be over if Trump's elected, that kind of thing.
It's possible, but it's also incredibly stupid.
And what is at risk here?
Well, we already kind of know, even if we didn't predict this,
we can see what's happening. What's happening is Russia is not interested anymore in negotiating.
Russia has the military upper hand. Russia is proceeding to the West. They are continuing the
slow slog westward, and they are taking property that very likely they won't give back. So as they
do that, what do we have in Poland?
Well, Poland's getting fed up with Ukrainian refugees.
Poland's getting fed up with having to share NATO investment and U.S. investment with Ukraine,
who is, it's a black hole.
Nobody wants to invest in Ukraine.
Do you think that Putin will attack American weaponry being stored and maintained and prepped for battle in Poland?
He will if he has to. I think the Russians seem to be holding off from doing that. You know,
keeping this thing is extremely controlled and constrained. You know, they don't want to make
it more than it needs to be, it seems like. But yeah,
I mean, if there's long range weapons, they have to defend their country. And, you know, it's funny
because countries have a right to self-defense. And we say, oh, Ukraine has a right to self-defense.
And we say, oh, Israel. Israel has a definite right to self-defense. They can do whatever
they need to do. And of course, Israel sets the example, right? They'll fire missiles, you know, a thousand miles away in defense, in the name of defense.
So, yeah, Russia will have plenty of world support if it comes to that.
But it seems like they're trying to hold off.
Here's the adult in the room, Russian, you know, I'm going to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier today, Karen, in a clip that we call The West is Looking we say in Russia, is looking for trouble. It is very important to
understand that we have our own doctrine, including doctrine on the use of nuclear weapon,
which, by the way, has been adjusted now. And American representatives are well aware about it.
Should that be chilling? The Russians have adjusted their standard operating procedure for the use of nuclear weapons?
Yeah, but we caused that. I mean, didn't Biden just in March do a secret readjustment?
Right, right. According to Matt Ho, this readjustment allows for three nuclear confrontations at once, one with Russia. This is incredible.
One with China and one with North Korea. I don't know if this was leaked because they somehow think
it's going to help Vice President Harris against former President Trump, or if this is really their
prudential thinking circa April of this year, but it was just leaked right around the time of the
Democratic National Convention. Yeah, it could be. Maybe it was just leaked right around the time of the Democratic National
Convention. Yeah, it could be. Maybe it was leaked by somebody who's really concerned that we're
going to destroy the world for political reasons that are really something that should be entirely
limited to Washington, D.C. Instead, Washington, D.C. is interested in destroying the planet
in order to retain Democratic Party power. That's possible. But yeah, the Russians have
adapted as well they should. And really, these strategies have been shifting because the United
States has been pulling away for years from any limitations in the talks that lead to limitations
in all kinds of nuclear weaponry.
So because we're not talking to anyone, we're not communicating, we're forging our own path ahead,
that necessarily drives anybody else with nuclear weapons to pay close attention and to adapt accordingly
and to expect that everything else in the world stays the same while one country,
the most important country, the United States of America, makes a
decision and proceeds somewhere, that everything else stays the same. That is the most sophomoric
strategic error, which is very typical, very, very typical of how Washington tries to solve
problems, both domestically and internationally. They feel like, well, we'll just, we control
everything, so we'll just do this and that'll happen. And they have no idea how the world works
and how people work. Is Israel losing the propaganda war internationally?
Oh, yeah, no doubt about that. They've been, that's been happening now for a long time. They really, I think maybe they
truly thought that the Gaza operation would not last as long as it has, that they could quickly
massacre, exterminate, move Palestinians off of Gaza, and that it would be over with very quickly.
Because if you think back to December and January, you know, there was, you know, we're so close to a ceasefire. We're almost done. We're almost done.
Well, they weren't almost done. They're not almost done now. It's not working out as they planned.
And as the time goes on, the lack of control of the optics is just exploded. They have no
control of the optics. Now, in America, they do, but we're their only ally. So, you know,
the people around the world see this and, you know, people aren't. In fact, the best thing
that they ever did for the BDS movement, which is to avoid economically supporting Israel by not
buying Israeli-made products, best thing they ever did for that was invade Gaza because that's
exploded. That is a permanent fixture now globally.
Nobody wants Israeli stuff.
Nobody.
Karen Kwiatkowski, a pleasure, my dear friend.
Thank you for your time and for your analysis.
We hope you'll come back again next week.
Okay, sure enough.
Thank you, Judge.
Of course.
All the best to you.
And coming up at four o'clock this afternoon, Eastern, Professor John Mearsheimer, judge of the Politano for judging freedom. Thank you.