Judging Freedom - Netanyahu and the Making of a Quagmire. w_ Larry Johnson, Fmr. CIA Intel

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

Netanyahu and the Making of a Quagmire. w_ Larry Johnson, Fmr. CIA IntelSee 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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so so so so Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, October 16th, 2023. Larry Johnson joins us as usual on a Monday morning. Larry, no matter what we discuss, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. What should be the Israeli first goal here? Should it be the safe extrication of hostages, or should it be the degrading of Hamas? Well, I don't think degrading of Hamas is an achievable objective for Israel. I think right now we're at a point that I haven't seen in my lifetime.

And so, you know, going back to the 67 war and then the Yom Kippur war, we're on the threshold of Israel being isolated in a way that it never has been, in my view, as a result of this war with Hamas. They keep trying to talk about it in terms of tactical issues. We've got to defeat the terrorists without examining why is it that these people are fighting as they have been for 70 years now hamas is not 70 years old it's uh you know 30 years old but the the heart and soul of this struggle it's really over land and identity and they can't neither side can kill their way out of it. And they refuse to come to grips with that. So, you know, right now, I think Israel would be better off from an optic standpoint of enlisting the assistance of Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, to try to find some way to negotiate their way out of this. But every one of those countries that you just named is now at least diplomatically allied with China against Israel.

Well, they're not necessarily against Israel, like Russia, for example. Russia still has had a foundation of a relationship. Israel's actions with respect to Ukraine have put some strains on that. But you're going to have to bring in some people to the side of the table that Hamas is going to want to deal with. And the option for people to say, oh, you're naive, the negotiation. Well, the killing that's going to go on, the way Israel is lined up, you see Israel's got, you know, hundreds of tanks, armored personnel carriers. Their air force has, you know, complete control of the sky.

They're fighting against Hamas, which doesn't have tanks, which doesn't have armored personnel carriers, doesn't have an air force. And it fires some missiles, but those missiles are not terribly effective. The images that will emerge from this will portray Israel as a bully, as a malevolent bully. And what it's doing right now, it is inflaming throughout the Arab and Muslim world, the populations. It's igniting and rallying a level of support that, you know, hasn't always been the case in past conflicts, like back in 2006. So, you know, that's, I think, from a pragmatic standpoint of Israel's survival, that if they don't, if they try to handle this purely militarily and do the Battle of Leningrad on the Gaza Strip, where they surround it and kill the population, regardless of civilian,

because the Hamas is not wearing military uniforms. You don't have established bases that can be targeted as strictly military targets. And Israel and Western supporters will argue, well, Hamas has human shields. Okay, that may be the case. But so what? It doesn't change the view of the people in Iraq, in Turkey, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Egypt, and just start going down the list. And that's what I'm saying, that people are neglecting to consider what's happening with this international coalition that's beginning to form.

So Israeli reservists have been using social media to complain. They don't have equipment. They don't have training. They don't have training. They don't have uniforms. Right. So is the Israeli army prepared for a street-by-street, block-by-block, house-by-house urban guerrilla warfare? No.

No, they're not. Part of the problem with Israel is because it is largely a reservist force, sort of like our National Guard, they'll do periodic training. But the kind of training we're talking about required to take on urban combat is very intense and, you know, would encompass at least a couple of months to really get units prepared for it. And then you're looking at taking casualties at a much higher rate than Israel has ever experienced. People are not appreciating the blow that Hamas delivered to the Israeli military a week ago Saturday, during the 2006 invasion into southern Lebanon by Israel.

And Israel suffered, I think it was, I believe, 251 killed in action, and then that operation alone. It looks like Hamas killed well over 600 Israeli troops. And we're not talking some run-of-the-mill weekend warrior. We're talking some of theof-the-mill weekend warrior. We're talking some of the most elite personnel suffered casualties, significant casualties. So Israel right now, this has started off at a level of Israel losing more soldiers than it has since before war back in 1973. So this is getting dangerous because as Israel continues to launch missiles into Lebanon

and Hezbollah is launching missiles into Israel, that's heating up. You've got Islamic fighters from other nations starting to move to this area, and they'll be on the borders Israel cannot and does not have the power to fight a two-front war it doesn't and does it does it know does does Prime Minister Netanyahu who will reach to any height or stoop to any level to avoid being prosecuted himself or removed from office himself to unite the country behind him? Does he realize the danger that he's placing

Israel in by his defense minister and military chiefs saying we're going to decimate Gaza by one of the right-wingers in his cabinet saying, well, who cares? They're not even human. They're subhumans. Does he realize the effect of that language on the security of Israel? I don't know if he realizes it, but I don't think he cares. This is all about survival. And when you put the narrative in the following terms that we are out, these people want to exterminate us

like the Nazis wanted to exterminate us in World War II. Therefore, we need to do everything in our power to defeat them. So that is the narrative, that's the meme, that's how they're organized to deal with Hamas and Hezbollah with no room. And, yes, there are statements by Hamas calling for the destruction of Israel. I mean, let's not pretend that they are Mahatma Gandhi out there trying to put daisies in the rifles of Israeli soldiers. Right. Is anybody but us pointing out that the Gaza Strip is an open-air concentration camp? Right, right, right. very few in America that are noting that. It is pretty well noted, at least once you're into,

you know, what we used to call the third world or the global south, particularly in Arab and Muslim nations, they are noticing. And if you've seen any of the images from the various protests that have taken place in Peshawar, Pakistan, in Ankara, Turkey, in Yemen, in Sana'a, massive, massive numbers of people. These are not paid protesters. So this is really resonating. And judge, never in the history of Israel have they faced a war like what they're faced with now with social media. Social media is a real wild card in this because of its ability to get information out in a way that the governments cannot control it. You know,

in previous wars with the media being controlled by, if you're a frontline war correspondent, you're still under the control of either the Department of Defense or the German Wehrmacht. But now with social media, anybody with a smartphone can get out there, film it, record some content, and then find a platform to put it up on. So what I'm hearing you say is at this moment in time, the Israelis are weaker than they have been, less prepared than they have been, and their adversaries using freedom of speech and social media are as aroused as they've ever been. Is that a fair summary, Larry? Yeah. Well, just look, you know, I put an article up at Sonar 21 the other day,

because in my inbox, I get this appeal. Hey, please give what you can so we can buy Israeli soldiers body armor. They don't have body armor. Think about that. The Israelis are getting tens, hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States in military aid, for starters. They have their own taxes to fund their own defense budget. And yet nobody on the Israeli military side or the political side has ever taken a moment to say, you know what? We need X amount of dollars to make sure that every one of our soldiers who's going to go into combat is outfitted with body armor. They haven't done that. Well, it's a little late to do it now, isn't it?

The barn's on fire, the horse is out, a little late. Here's Jake Sullivan. You and I and the people watching us now are not fans of his, but he is telling Jake Tapper on CNN that the Israelis have a good idea where Hamas is.

I think you listen to what he says. Actually, Chris, play both links. So we have Jake Sullivan on the hostages and Jake Sullivan. It's the same interview on Israeli intelligence of where Hamas is. Hamas is a terrorist group. Don't get me wrong, but how do we know anything about what they're hitting, given the fact that it doesn't sound like any of the intelligence inside Gaza is particularly good. Well, Jake, Israel has known where particular parts of Hamas's terrorist infrastructure have been located. They know, for example, where rockets are fired from,

and they can go back to those locations to take out the rocket emplacements. They know from various forms of intelligence collection where certain individuals are located who are senior commanders in Hamas, who are part of the bloody and barbaric attacks that took place against Israel last Saturday. Well, the president has been very clear that he has no higher priority than getting Americans back safe, Americans who are being held hostage by Hamas. The Israelis are bombing the crap out of Gaza, Jake. I mean, it doesn't seem like saving the hostages are a priority at all right now. Well, for President Biden, they are a priority.

They're the highest possible priority. And he has sent hostage experts to coordinate and consult with the Israeli government on hostage recovery efforts. He's also made sure that our diplomats are in touch with third countries in the region to explore avenues for their safe release. I have to be cautious about how much I can say about certain efforts he's undertaking because we want to protect those efforts. So is it unrealistic to expect, Larry, that the Israelis could conduct surgical strikes to extract hostages? Is it unrealistic to expect that the Israelis could conduct surgical strikes to degrade Hamas? Yes. Short answer. Look, what's funny about this, and I got a note from one of my

intelligence buddies in the military. He said when all of this started that Israel said that they were bombing precise locations because they knew where Hamas was in the Gaza Strip. And he goes, let me see if I've got this straight. Israel didn't know that they were going to be attacked at all of their military bases along the Gaza Strip. But they actually know where Hamas is. He says, yeah, that makes sense. And his sarcasm is spot on. Look, I was involved when I was at the State Department

in the Office of Counterterrorism. We were involved with looking for the hostages that had been taken by Hezbollah in Lebanon. And we had task force, we had a high tasking of all intelligence assets, overhead photography, imagery, intercepts from NSA. We had no idea where they were. And even if you can find out where they're located,

the question is, what kind of force do you insert under the cover of darkness it would have to be? And with all this rubble that they're creating in Gaza by blowing up these buildings, finding a landing zone for a helicopter is going to be a bit difficult. And he said, well, they can fast rope down. They can fast rope down. But if they grab the hostages, they're not going to climb the rope back up. So just from an operational standpoint, it's going to be very difficult. And I think Jake Tapper's skepticism was spot on when he said, well, how can you say you're concerned about the hostages when they're bombing the crap out of Gaza? You know, it doesn't add up.

I want to play a piece for you. This is Ron Paul, Congressman Paul, eight years ago on the floor of the House of Representatives, explaining why he's voting against aid to Israel, pointing out that the Israelis created Hamas and basically saying what you said earlier, that there's really no military solution here because the hatred runs so deep. I rise in opposition to this resolution, not because I am taking sides and picking who the bad guys are and who the good guys are, but I'm looking at this more from the angle of being a United States citizen, an American, and I think resolutions like this really do us great harm.

In many ways, what's happening in the Middle East, and in particular with Gaza right now, we have some moral responsibility for both sides in a way, because we provide help and funding for both Arab nations and Israel. And so we definitely have a moral responsibility, and especially now today, the weapons being used to kill so many Palestinians are American weapons, and American funds essentially are being used for this. You know, Hamas, if you look at the history, you'll find out that Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasser Arafat.

So we first indirectly and directly through Israel helped establish Hamas. Then we have election. Then Hamas becomes dominant. So we have to kill them. There's too much blowback. There's a lot of reasons why we should oppose this resolution. It is not in the interest of the United States. It's not in the interest of Israel either.

Spot on. Yeah. You know, right now they're deploying an additional aircraft carrier, carrier strike group to the Mediterranean. So we've got, I think we only have a total of six aircraft carriers. So literally one third of our entire force is now concentrated in this one area. If this escalates and Iran gets involved and Syria gets involved and even Turkey gets involved, that carrier strike group could be at real risk. And, you know, think the unthinkable that if we lose one or even two aircraft carriers and the consequence of this,

this is going to escalate this battle beyond what it is right now. Are the aircraft carriers sitting ducks for drones and other unmanned projectiles? Yes. No, they don't have a very robust, the Aegis system, which is really not a very good air defense system. And if somehow Iran, for example, managed to get its hands on a hypersonic missile, there is no defense at all for the carrier strike group against a hypersonic missile. It is a carrier killer.

So this, and then you've got to step back and say, apart from, you know, this is like some muscled up guy taking off his shirt and oiling up and then flexing muscles at a show. What is the carrier actually going to do practically? Well, all it could do is launch aircraft and cruise missiles that would hit and kill Palestinians. That is not going to strengthen the U.S. position in the world. It's going to make the United States thought it was a good idea to shell Hezbollah in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. And that led to a response by Hezbollah, which, you know, blew up the Marine barracks and then blew up the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. So, you know, I think we could get into sort of that new kind of escalation that we haven't seen for a while. Here's the Secretary of Defense almost sounding like your allegory of a muscle beach guy oiling himself up to show off.

What's your assessment right now of the chances of Lebanese Hezbollah opening up a second front? Well, that possibility is always there. We would highly discourage any entity, any country, any organization from doing that. As you saw, Nick, when this happened, we rapidly moved a carrier battle group into the region. And that carrier battle group provides us with a number of options. So you heard President Biden say the other day that if anybody ever is thinking about this, you know, we would say don't. I think you're right. I don't know what good they're doing there. But let's, before I let you go, move to another part of the world. Does anybody remember Vladimir Zelensky?

So the world now recognizes that the spring and renamed summer offensive has overgone a failure, that the Russians are actually beginning to move westward and the Ukrainians are in a defensive posture. How much longer can this go on? How much longer can President Zelensky even last? And how much aid is he going to get when the House of Representatives can't even take a vote? The aid is going to be declining, and the aid is a critical factor. Once it's cut off, then Ukraine could last probably no more than two weeks. So as long as there's a trickle, they'll try to hang on in some form or fashion.

But it's not going to stop the Russians from their advance, which is, you know, Russia really is on the offensive now. They're just not talking about it. They're not advertising it. They're just going about it. They're not advertising it. They're just going about it quietly. And they're capturing a significant number of Ukrainians who are surrendering to Russia. They've got another significant force trapped in what they call a cauldron, basically surrounded. So the war has completely gone off the rails for Ukraine. We've been talking about this for months, that this was the inevitable direction where it was headed.

But now Israel is the big distraction. That's where everybody's focused. Just look at what happened. The United States took the 101st airborne that was deployed in Romania, pulled them out, and moved them into, I believe, Jordan. So, and all of, look at all of the F-16s and aircraft that the United States is putting into its bases in the region, moving very fast, very dramatically. The United States never did any of that with Ukraine. How many troops did we move to Jordan? Does the American public know that we have troops on the ground in Jordan? And for what purpose other than to move into Israel?

There is a contingency. I don't know what their particular concept of operation is, but it was, you know, I read it was like two days ago that they pulled out the 101st and moved them. So they've gone from Romania. I'm not sure if they're in Jordan, but they're somewhere there in the region, and they've moved in there as a contingency in the event that Israel needed to be reinforced. Now, there is a message circulating today from a National Guard general saying that he's talked to his troops, and the troops are saying

there's no way in hell we're going to go fight for Israel. In fact, he said there's a lot of anti-Semitic sentiment being expressed among some of the National Guard troops. So, yeah, like I said, this is a mess. And the Polish government, the conservative government, was just thrown out of office. Right.

You know, Poland's sort of an image or maybe it's an example of what the United States can become, or that's where we're headed. Because what made the U.S. unique was we had two strong parties. Now, some would say there's not much difference between the two, but at least one would rule or the other would rule. You never had divided government. The United States is headed towards a situation where, like in Poland, nobody won a majority. So you've got to cobble together some sort of alliance with some people that you may not necessarily fully agree with. And so the United States is moving into the chaotic politics that has become characteristic, even in Israel. Israel, Bibi Netanyahu didn't win a majority. He had a plurality of votes, but had to cobble together and cut deals with some of the most extreme right-wing parties in Israel in order to get a governing coalition.

And he's opposed by about close to 50% of the other Israelis. So that's where our politics are headed. So Poland is sort of a predictor of what the United States faces in the future, I think. Larry, always a pleasure, my friend. We'll look forward to seeing you on Friday for the Intelligence Roundtable. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks, Judge. Of course. More as we get it. Please tell your friends to like and subscribe. We're up to 213,000 subscriptions. As you know, our goal is 250,000 by Christmas. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates,

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