Judging Freedom - NATO & U.S. in Denial over Ukraine Offensive w/ Matthew Hoh

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, July 26, 2023. Matt Ho returns to the cameras today for us. Matt, of course, is a former Marine Corps captain and State Department official. Matt, always a pleasure. Thank you for coming back to us. I missed you while I was away, as did our fans and our regular viewers, but it's good to be back with you. I want to talk to you about the state of affairs in Ukraine as it's developed in the past couple of weeks and where you see it going. Whatever became of the spring offensive that President Zelensky was announcing so positively just a month ago? I'm sorry.

You know, I mute this thing thinking I'm all good just in case my dogs bark, and then I forget to take it off mute. Okay. So anyway. Were you able to hear my question? I was. I was. My apologies for that.

At my age, I thought it was my hearing. So anyway, what this is, is this grand sacrifice of life for political theater, right? There was an imperative to show progress, an imperative to show success on the battlefield, imperative to show that the last year of blood and treasure that have gone into this war, the sacrifices by the Ukrainians have been worth it. have launched on around June 4th, June 5th, was meant to ensure that when the Vilnius-Lithuania NATO summit of earlier this month kicked off, that there would be a great success to show. And what you've seen is you've seen that, you know, and no fault to the Ukrainian army, no fault to the Ukrainian people, they have been played like pawns in this war against a much larger, much better prepared, much better resourced army in the Russian army. But they have been thrown, sacrificed thousands and thousands of lives to try and demonstrate success, to try and show progress. And I think those of us in the United States recall this is

what happened in Iraq. This is what happened in Afghanistan. This is the reason why I resigned from my post in Afghanistan in 2009, because I knew that escalation of the war then was going to be futile. And that's exactly what happened. We just threw thousands of lives, condemned them, condemned their families to the misery, you know, destruction of a country to try and demonstrate progress for political ends. And I think it's important for people to remember there are four levels of warfare, right? There's a tactical, the operational, the strategic and the political. And the political is on top. And so all these decisions that are made are made for political purposes. Right. You're a very courageous guy. This is a very strong assessment of what's going on there. So the politicians in Kiev, not the military leadership,

but the political leadership, which has got to mean President Zelensky and the people around him, were willing to sacrifice Ukrainian soldiers and civilians for a cause they knew they would lose. And he preened around Europe and even the United States promoting this vaunted spring offensive, knowing he was going to lose it. Part one. Part two.

We know from the documents that were released allegedly by Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts National Guardsman on Cape Cod, allegedly by him alone, documents the authenticity or accuracy of which the government has never publicly challenged. That the government itself, your former bosses in the Defense Department, knew that Ukraine would not prevail in the spring offensive and knew the Ukraine was losing the war. Nevertheless, President Zelensky tried to tell the war of the world, did tell the world, the spring offensive is coming and we're going to triumph, and was willing to sacrifice innocent human beings to that end. Do I have that right? Right. Not only that, it's the sacrifice, which itself is just unholy and immoral and just catastrophic.

But you have the danger, the risk that that puts Ukraine in. So over the weekend, in the last couple of days, there have been some major stories, very important stories in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, right? Papers of record for the United States, some of the most important papers in the world, particularly in terms of geopolitical affairs. And what they've been saying is that American officials knew this wasn't going to work. And so, as you said, we saw this in the release of the discord papers, but even now you have American officials confiding to the times and to the journal that we knew this wasn't going to work. Horror, what even makes it even more horrifying, Judge, is that in an article in the, it was a journal yesterday, an anonymous, they're always anonymous, right?

An anonymous American official says, well, we'll see what happens when Ukraine uses the last of its reserves. Then we'll move on to what we do next. Then we'll be plan B or plan C or plan D or whatever we're at right now. Right. But his saying of that, his, this, this idea that they're going to use the last of the reserves. This goes back to what I was just talking about before about the strategic being subordinate to the political.

It's a military axiom. This is this was this is what the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps teaches to its second lieutenants. You do not reinforce failure. So if you launch an attack and it's failing, you do not throw your reserves into that attack in some type of Hail Mary. You know, hope is not a strategy. You know, that goes back to the Roman legions, I believe. So this idea, right, that they are going to actually use up the rest of the Ukrainian army just to give a good show, just to say, well,

we put our effort in, just to say that we tried or that no one can point a finger at the White House or at Downing Street or wherever and say that you didn't do enough. Because I think that's what they're so scared about right now on the political end is this goes back now decades, right, to who lost China, who lost Ukraine. So the political posturing is going to get more and more people killed and could put Ukraine in a position where it allows Russia to exploit a Ukrainian army collapse or exhaustion and provide Russia with the ability to have a knockout blow, so to say. I'm going to ask you in a minute what conceivable off-ramp the Biden administration has. But before we get there, I want to juxtapose

the anonymous source from the Wall Street Journal, which you were kind enough just to summarize, with the boss of the anonymous source. Here's President Biden claiming Putin has already lost the war. The issue of whether or not this is going to keep Putin from continuing to fight. The answer is Putin's already lost the war. Putin has a real problem. How does he move from here? What does he do? And so the idea that there's going to be what vehicle is used, he could end the war tomorrow.

He could just say, I'm out. But what agreement is ultimately reached depends upon Putin and what he decides to do. But there is no possibility of him winning the war in Ukraine. He's already lost that war. Imagine if even if anyway, he's already lost that war. Imagine if even if anyway, he's already lost that war. Well, it's almost embarrassing. It's so disjointed. But if there's any takeaways from it, it's that Putin has lost the war and there's no possibility for him winning. Hardly consistent with what the anonymous source, presumably from the DOD or the State Department or the National

Security Council, and we'll put Jake Sullivan up in a minute, told the Wall Street Journal. Well, it's clear that Russia is not losing. I don't believe they're winning either. I mean, I think there are some winners in this conflict so far. It's the arms industries, of course, right? It's NATO, because they've brought in two new members and as well as I think the right wing in Ukraine has has won in effect because all three of those, the arms manufacturers, NATO, as well as the right wing in Ukraine, they now have this reason for being. That's almost like a holy reason. You know, people know I often use like religious connotations because the war is a religious experience in so many ways. But this idea that there are some winners in this, but certainly not the people of Ukraine or the nation of Ukraine, which has lost 20 percent of its land that is now completely forested with mines and unexploded ordnance.

You know, the size of the landmine infestation, if you will, in Ukraine is larger than the state of Florida. I mean, this is what you know, this is what has been lost by Ukraine, the nation. This is what you know. I mean, so this idea that they have somehow won other than some type of fear of victory or because it sounds good, it makes politicians look tough. We stood up to the Russian bear. Right. Which is a motif that goes back to the 1850s in the British Parliament. I mean, so you have, right? I mean, so you have this idea. Another thing that was scary that's coming out is on the anonymous sources is that you would normally think, I think in a rational mind, you would say, okay, we're going to put in our effort. We're going to throw into this offensive. We're going to try and win the war militarily. And if that doesn't work, then maybe we'll negotiate. And you see this thinking, again,

that goes back to the way it's the same people. It's always the same people in Washington, D.C., making this foreign policy, whether they have R's or D's after name, the same thinking in Afghanistan, the same thinking in Iraq, the same thinking of Syria, you know, that we're going to win military, force their hand, and that they're going to have to come and beg us for peace and you're not seeing that at all but the reports coming out in the journal and the times makes it seem as if the the results of the failed offensive will not be a turn to negotiations which is what a sane rational mind might do but rather a reason to keep fighting that okay we cannot negotiate until we have the upper hand in order to get the upper rather a reason to keep fighting that, OK, we cannot negotiate until we have the upper hand or to get the upper hand. We have to keep fighting, even though it's been shown that this

war is impossible for us to win militarily. Now, of course, there's a difference right between winning the war and sustaining the war. And I think that's the that's the calculation the Russians have to make. Vladimir Putin, his people have to make. How long do they want to keep this going? Because even though they have the upper hand now and even though they may be able to advance, I'm not as bullish as, say, Colonel McGregor is on this, but I think I think they want to basically stay where they're at. But I would hedge that bet by saying maybe they will advance after this, particularly if the Ukrainian army is so foolish as to commit its reserves into a failed offensive. Right. So what is but my feeling is that like any war, any foreign war, you're going to have domestic political consequences that in two or three years time will have real effects on Russia. And I think Vladimir Putin has to understand that has to balance that. Same time, too, you're going to have this commitment within the United States and NATO, whereas we are only producing 25,000 artillery

shells a month now. But now every member of the United States Congress wants to increase that to 100,000 a month. And they'll put the money behind it. Because remember, the weapons contractors have this purpose. NATO has this purpose. It's a holy purpose. And eventually it will take on this idea that retaking Crimea becomes like a crusade, as if we have to retake Jerusalem, right? Right, right, right. All right. We're going to take a break.

When we come back, the United States has run out of artillery to supply to Ukraine, and in place of it are sending cluster bombs. What is that going to do to the landmass already filled with landmines? But first this. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Lear Capital. Are you tired of feeling helpless while rollerco coaster markets and economic uncertainty wreak havoc on your savings? It's time to take control of your financial future and consider investing in gold. Gold has a long history as a safe haven for investors who want to diversify their wealth against economic uncertainty. Unlike paper investments, gold is easy to buy and easy to sell and easy to

store and has never been worth zero. You all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital. I know the folks at Lear. I trust the folks at Lear. I do my investing in gold and silver at Lear and you should do the same. Lear has over 25 years of experience in the business and thousands of five-star reviews and a 24-hour purchase guarantee, risk-free. When I buy gold, I choose Lear. So call my friends at Lear. Use the 800 number below.

Tell them the judge sent you. 800-511-4620. Get your gold and silver wealth protection information. Get your investor information. Get your questions answered with no pressure and no obligation to purchase. And for a limited time, you might be able to qualify for a $15,000 bonus gold with a qualifying purchase. So call my friends at Lear, 800-511-4620, or do as I do and go on the internet, learjudgenap.com. I want you to take a look at Admiral Kirby doing his best Baghdad Bob imitation, chatting with my friend and former Fox colleague, Martha McCallum, and take a listen to

what he says at the very end about the cluster munitions and about the need to turn the tides. First time I've heard an American government official talking about the need to turn the tide. What they really need are the four A's, artillery, ammunition, air defense, and armor tanks. And on all four of those, we have provided an extraordinary amount of support at, quite frankly, unprecedented speed. Those are the four capabilities they need most. And if you look at the packages, just we just announced one yesterday, and there's going to be one here in coming days, you'll see that we are really trying to get them those kinds of capabilities. Now, look, the F-16s will get there probably towards the end of the year,

but it's not our assessment that the F-16s alone would be enough to turn the tide here. What they really need more than anything of all those 4As is artillery, and that's why the president made a difficult decision to provide cluster munitions as a bridging solution as we build up our production capacity of normal conventional artillery rounds. That's what they're firing thousands of them a day. It's really a gunfight. So stated differently and in plainer English, we have run out of artillery rounds. We don't have them for our own use.

We don't have them to give away. We don't have them to sell them. So we're going to give you cluster bombs, which can kill children 10 years from now. You know, Judge, what I'd really like to see is I'd really like to see some members of Congress haul in the generals, the previous secretaries of defense, and ask them what they did with all the trillions of dollars they were given. We have been spending more than the next 10 nations combined on our Pentagon and our military and our weapons contractors for decades now. And we can't produce artillery shells, right? So the need for some degree of accountability here, you know, but it just shows that the whole thing, whether it's the war or the spending or the institutions themselves, are rackets.

They're grifts. If anyone has any doubt about that, look at the fact of the Pentagon. It's only been the last five years I've ever been audited and they'd never pass and they've never passed any of those audits. So this idea that how can we spend this much money and not be able to produce something as simple as artillery shells? George Washington had artillery shells. I mean, this isn't anything new. This isn't anything. Right. I mean, this isn't anything that is so advanced and so complex. You know, we just can't do it. This is a question of what has been the purpose of this trillions of dollars in Pentagon spending. And if people are unsure about how much we're talking about, we're talking about 16 trillion dollars this century in Pentagon spending. How dangerous is it that we don't have artillery shells to use for our own needs?

God forbid we needed them for our own military purposes in the next month or two. Well, yeah, I'm hopefully, you know, United States Army is not going to march to war anytime soon. And but the thing that's scary about this, right, is that this is what the actual quality of the armed forces at its most senior levels is able to do, how they're able to actually run the organization and prepare it for war. Now, certainly a lot of artillery shells have been given, millions of artillery shells have been given to Ukraine, many of them coming out of American stocks, but also too, there's been Americans running around the world buying artillery shells from every country that will sell us to them to give to the Ukrainians. But this idea that we can't produce enough shells in a surge capacity shows just how

unserious and again, how much of a racket, how much of a grift the military industrial complex actually is. One of the things I understand about the way the Russians operate in other nations, but the Russians in particular, is that when they let a contract for tanks, you are going to build 100 tanks a month or whatever the number is going to be. Right. That is also what you will have the capacity to surge to 150, 200, 250 tanks. Now, in the United States, simply not that. The United States, the way it works, if you were to build 100 vehicles or whatever a month, the defense contractor is going to make sure that's the most efficient process so that only the bare amount of resources

that are needed to produce 100 tanks a month are put into that production facility so that they can squeeze every ounce of profit out of it, all the while talking about how patriotic they are, of course, right? What is your take on the Prokosian affair? I mean, was that a stunt? Was it a real coup? Was Putin ever actually threatened? Is he stronger? Is he weaker now that it's over with and Prokosian is off the front pages? Well, I think it was real. I think this is, you know, one of the foundational underlying fundamental elements of military operations is having a union of command. And we have this large private mercenary force embedded into your army. You're going to have issues. You're going to have problems. And then, of course, when you say, hey, we're no longer going to fund you or pay you,

we're going to transfer this into the military, the leadership of that company, Progozhin, is going to say, no, don't do that, as well then to all the other political issues that were circulating around this. So I believe it was a real mutiny. I believe that two reasons. Putin has been shown to be strong in this because he has so effectively quashed it. It was over within 24 hours. It was a real problem, of course, a mercenary army on the road to your capital is a real thing. However, the way he was able to put it down within 24 hours without having to resort to mass force. Some people were killed, but it wasn't the civil war that many American mainstream media commentators were speculating it would be. The other thing too, is that this now allows Putin maybe to crack down, to go after others

outside of his circle. Those who've been critical gives him the reason to do so. Look, I mean, we've had 9-11 attacks in this country that gave our Congress the reason to pass the. Look, I mean, hey, we've had that. We had 9-11 attacks in this country that gave our Congress the reason to pass the Patriot Act. Right. And we have we have episodes like this. It gives those in power the excuse that they want or they need to crack down. And what we just saw was a man named Igor Gherkin, who Jokov is his alias, who was very instrumental in the Russian seizure of Crimea and in the Donbass War starting in 2014, who, if you read through his bio, comes across as like a real life Tom Clancy type character. He was just arrested by the security services in Russia. He's very

politically, he is a very important political figure in Russia. He just helped found an organization called the Club of Angry Patriots. So these are the people who have been at Putin and Putin's people that they've not been fighting the war hard enough. These are attacking Putin from his right. Exactly, which is where their actual organized resistance or any type of real regime change might come from within Russia, which is why so many of us have been saying this policy of causing this war to happen, sucking Russia in, causing it to collapse because of the war, and that's how you're going to affect regime change, is just absolutely insane. Because what you're more than likely to end up with is a government to the right of Vladimir Putin, a government that's much more nationalist, a government that's much more hardline, and a government that definitely does want to recreate an imperialist Russia.

I don't believe that's what Putin wants, but these people to his right certainly do. And that's who would most likely fill the void if you were able to get this magical regime change. But that is highly unlikely, I believe. Last subject matter, I want you to look at Jake Sullivan's comments. He mentions the third rail, which is American boots on the ground. Then he says it will never happen. I'm just wondering if you think this is a trial balloon. Take a listen. I can't speak to what's in the mind of President Putin. All I can say is that the basic U.S. position in this comes down to a single clear point, which is we are going to support Ukraine without having U.S. boots on the ground and American soldiers fighting Russian soldiers. And that will remain consistent throughout the course of this conflict. I've never heard an American government official even hint at that or talk about it hypothetically.

Trial balloon, slip of the tongue, or just Jake being Jake? Yeah, I think that's the I think the exasperation, the stress of trying to hold this thing together is coming out. And so they're saying things sometimes that they don't mean to say. They're saying the quiet part out loud. Or they are putting out trial balloons. Or they're trying to get back control of the narrative. Like I think we saw with Admiral Kirby by having to say things like turn the tide, which you had said you've never heard them say that kind of thing before. It's always been victory or we're on the road to victory or things are going well.

So I think that's the case. You know, the idea that we somehow can control this war, that it's going to be something that we can manage and ensure its outcome is just pure fantasy. The only thing I have said about this war since the invasion in February 2022 that I will stand by is that if anyone tells you how it's going to end, don't believe them. They don't know what they're talking about. I mean, so the idea that this war can further escalate, and I think what we see, Judge, is we see the front lines stalemated, right? So the fighting between units stalemated. But what we see outside of that, the war escalating, we saw that with the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal. Same day that grain deal collapses, the Ukrainians attacked the Crimea Bridge, the Kerch Strait Bridge. And then the Russians launched massive strikes on Ukrainian port facilities, including right next door to Romania. And then, of course,

the Ukrainians respond by attacking Moscow, and then a cathedral gets destroyed, right? I mean, but you understand how the escalation occurs. And where did the escalation come from? That escalation came because diplomacy was not used. And so we always come back to this idea that, look, the deliberate misuse or malpractice or dismissal of diplomacy ensured that this war occurred. The only thing that's going to end this war is deliberate diplomacy. And I think the episode of the last week where we saw the escalation in the Black Sea of this war to include, you know, again, civilian infrastructure. Both sides are claiming that they're going to sink civilian commercial ships now. Terrific. That's great. Whoever thinks that whoever thinks that's fantastic, you know, you're a complete fool. So that's where this goes. And you see how quickly it can happen.

Matt Ho, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for your analysis. Much, much appreciated. Where can fans of Judging Freedom get more of you or see more of your work? Sure. So I'm on Twitter at Matthew P. Ho, P as in Patrick, last name spelled H-O-H. And then organization I'm with is called the Eisenhower Media Network. You can find us online and sign up for updates from them. Great. Great. Thank you very much, Matt. My friends, more as we get it, more for you tomorrow. Scott Ritter at two o'clock on Friday afternoon. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!