Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar : China and Russia Won’t Sit This Out !

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

Pepe Escobar : China and Russia Won’t Sit This Out !See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? the government? What if Jefferson was right? What if that government is best, which governs least?

What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, February 19, 2006, Pepe Escobar. You know, and just now from Moscow. Pepe, welcome here. How is the snow in Moscow in the middle of February? Pretty bad.

Wow, piles of snow today. I took a photo to send to Larry, our friend, in front of, they have a bronze statue of three journalists in front of the task office, and they were almost buried in snow. Wow. I have a picture of Larry and me with them. That statue is about 10 feet tall.

Wow. Exactly. Yes. Before we get to China and Russia and what they will probably tolerate and what they won't tolerate when Israel and the United States attack Iran, a couple of pieces from your piece, a couple of questions from your piece. Bavaria Rhapsody,

the Insecurity Conference Targets Recolonization of the Global South at Lou Rockwell.com and Judge Knapp.com. Thank you. It's a great piece. Some of the lines in there are hilarious. I've got to ask you about one or two. Is the rule-based international order now exposed as a sham? Absolutely.

And even before the admission by Mark Carney, and that continued to be the case in Munich. But then, of course, this was turned upside. down by Marco Rubius' speech. And that was quite something, Judge. Can you imagine in 26 years at the start of the new millennium, and you have a US Secretary of State going to Europe and basically telling the European Chihuahuas, look, now we are going to recolonize the global South and we ask you to come with us because then you're going to recover all the glamour that you had before when you were the the colonial power.

Basically, the United States of America, which Rubio described as a child of the Europeans, asking the Europeans whose colonies we helped to separate from them to allow us to colonize other countries. But you can't make this up. No, you can't make this up. Well, first of all, Marco Rubio, I wonder what he studied in history when he was in high school. It's really pathetic. But the call for recolonizing the global South issue to the Europeans and describing the U.S. as part of the European civilization, starting with Greece and Athens.

So, in fact, the U.S. there was never 1776, right? And what was the reaction in the audience when Rubio talked about the glories of recolonization? A standing ovation. Wow. I missed my case. Wow. So we really, well, what was the reaction when Rubio talked about the glories of Christianity? They probably sat on their hands.

Absolutely. And of course, nobody would make a connection to the glories of Christianity now in Syria and Palestine. That's not exactly glorious at the moment, is it? No, no, not at all. And he didn't say anything about the Israelis killing Christians in Palestine or Lebanon. Exactly. And before, American ISIS creatures killing Christians. in Syria, including the throat slitter, now opposing as president of Syria. This is one of the things that he did when he was one of the leaders of Idlibistan in

north in Syria. Well, well, you did use a couple of hilarious one-liners. You referred to a human being in your piece as the ghastly Estonian with the IQ of a dismembered worm. Very poor, the judge. No offense to worms. Right.

I think I know who she is, but you can tell us why you called her that. Well, we just need to look at her face. And it's absolutely crazy because average European citizens, I heard this in Italy a lot, and I even heard this in France.

And, you know, the average guy in a cafe on a bar, just look at her face and you can see that she's a bloody idiot. The problem is she represents us, 450 million plus. You're talking about Kayakalas, who's the commissioner of foreign affairs. I don't know what her title. She's called Haya officially judge. She's called higher representative of the European Commission for Foreign Policy. One of those typical Brussels titles.

Right. Now, a friend of mine, I don't want to tell you who he is, but he's a well-known professor of political philosophy at one of the oldest universities in Europe was a grad student with her. Really? He has repeatedly referred to her as the stupidest person in the class. But it's even better because he met her personally, and he saw how she was the typical idiot in the room when we're growing up. What did, you know, Gilbert doctor wrote told me that she would make Lindsay Graham look like Tucker Carlson.

Now, that is quite an extraordinary leap. What did she do or say that is so offensive to rational thinking? Well, the only thing she says, Judge, and it's her motto. It's anything rusophobic. I don't remember her saying anything about, for instance, EU policy vis-à-vis Africa or Latin America. Not to mention other parts of Europe. It's only Russia. She never says anything about China because she doesn't even know what's going on in China.

It's extremely embarrassing. And the kind of discussion that, you know, it's normal in Europe always comes back. to the point of the degradation of educational standards all across the EU. And obviously in Estonia, Estonia was never a bastion of great universities, right? So this is a new, and they pick these people very carefully to positions of power. Because they know that they are useful idiots. They can groom them since they are still in finishing their undergraduate courses. and that explains why all these people who are in the European Commission,

in the position of commissioners, I think there are 27 different commissioners in different parts of the EU. They're all the same. Probably the only one who had an intellect above room temperature in the past 25 years or so was Pascal Leib. That's the only one we can remember. Everybody else was their bloody idiots, essentially. The Russian-US Ukrainian Kabuki dance, the negotiations in Geneva, even though they had added to them two very senior Russians.

Mediinsky was back. Yes, Vladimir Medinsky, who you know who that is. He's the right-handed speaker to President of Putin, and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail collusion, even though they were added, the negotiations in Geneva lasted for two hours on Tuesday, and that's it. So this means there was, and Medinsky, he is a cool, calm, composed guy. He's a historian, he's very, very serious, and what he said is, as we're making progress, which is called for nothing happened.

And nothing did. I asked this question today, and this afternoon, Judge, was crazy. I did seven podcasts in a row. I don't think you ever did seven podcasts in a row in a matter of a few hours. Not to ask Chris, we might have done eight one day, but that's exhausting. It is. So I was asking my interlocutors, can you describe to me the feeling of having a professional historian and a super qualified diplomat in front of Budanov,

who is basically a war criminal sitting across the table. There's nothing to negotiate. And when I interviewed a commander, Abti Aloudinov, this guy is the guy who did absolutely everything in the special military operation. He's a lieutenant general, putting respect since immensely. And he said, no, you cannot even talk. to these people. And he knows these SBU guys and special forces guys, personally, the Ukrainians.

So there's nothing to discuss. Do the Russians have any respect for the two American real estate agents that Trump has sent to negotiate? That's a very, very long story. In fact, there's a joke going around in Moscow, Judge, that you have three American real estate developers who want to come up with. that plan to sell the war in Ukraine. Trump, Kushner, and Witkoff. Wow. Where are the negotiations going to go?

Nowhere. Nowhere. At the moment, absolutely nowhere. There is something that is extremely important. And I was trying to talk about it with my seven, in fact, almost eight interlocutors today. there is apparently a two-track process going on, which is the famous Kirill Dimitriyev plan, which was leaked to American mainstream media.

We still don't know if this was leaked by the Whitkoff people or by the Dimitriov people, but it was leaked anyway with seven points, which are completely absurd. And you talk to people here at the, level of minister of foreign relations or military level, SMO, or some of the best think tanks. And they say, but this is completely absurd. Do they expect Putin to actually follow any of these seven points?

And one of them, which has been recycled via Western mainstream media and via some media here in Russia, which is even more worrying, is that. Putin would be willing to do anything so Trump could lift sanctions against Russia, including vast U.S. investments in the Russian economy. This is beyond bullshit. And everybody confirmed that to me. This is beyond bullshit. And this is essentially spin by Reuters, AP, Wall Street Journal, CNN, etc.

Right, right. Colonel McGregor called the month. attention this morning reports out of France that US fighter pilots in US jets are patrolling the skies of Kyiv and there to shoot down Russian drones. Do you know anything about this? No, I don't. It's the first time that I actually I could try to talk to people in France about that and the Russians obviously they don't. They don't talk about what the Europeans are doing. They prefer to act. If this is reported in a reputable place in France, which Colonel McGregor says it is, then surely the Russians know about it. So the Russians

are negotiating with the Ukrainians. The head Ukrainian negotiator assassinated a Russian general and attempted to assassinate another. And the two mediators come from a country that is going to shoot down their own military equipment. Where are we going to go with us? And now it's, I would say, it's beyond tragic comic. It is a tragedy for Ukrainian people, comic because we have this criminal elements opposing as normal citizens or normal negotiators for that matter.

But it is tragic. The overall picture is tragic. and, of course, extremely sad because the whole thing is collapsing around Ukraine. And Al-Ladinov, in our interview, it was extraordinary because he started in the middle of the interview to get into an analysis, which was basically the philosophy of war. He is a guy who, the first thing that he says, if any war should not be fought by definition. But if you fight it, you have to go all the way. which is exactly what he did in his personal experience in Ukraine.

But here, yes, please, go ahead. Let me jump to Iran. If Israel and the United States attack, and I guess that should be when. I mean, Trump has amassed such an enormous amount of assets there, but when the U.S. attacks, what would Russia do? What did they, what they are already doing and not advertising? This is the Russian Modus Operandi judge and the Chinese as well. And Gruliev, I did an interview with Gruliev, which is arguably the best Russian military specialist nowadays.

And he said, no, we never tell anybody what we're doing. Of course, we have our protocols part of our strategic partnership with Iran. And then I pressed them a little bit more and saying, look, Iran delegations when they come to Moscow, they always say, look, anything we ask, they deliver and vice versa. And he said, yes, basically that's the case. They never asked us for something really. They did ask us in terms of protecting their grid because they had their grid broken at the start of the 12-day war. This is something is not going to happen again.

And now their grid is supervised by the Chinese. It's integrated with satellite Bay-Doh system and Chinese satellite Bay-Doh. And the Russians are helping in their counter-intel sphere as well. So silently, the Russians and the Chinese, everything that Iran needs to at least, I wouldn't say block, but at least reframe the Americans from doing more damage than they would in normal attacking conditions. They have it in place.

And they are self-confident, which they were not after the 12-day war, especially. What about oil? The Chinese receive 1.4 million barrels of Iranian oil a day. How are they going to get the oil out there? We are hearing some reports that China, will escort the tankers out and help to pay if the Americans interfere with those escorts. Absolutely. This will be the direct Chinese response and very graphic.

Look, we have the Chinese, the PLA Navy escorting our tankers. Are you going to attack us? Then you have to suffer the consequences. The other possibility is that assuming this would be, I was discussing this with Larry today, Judge, a few hours ago. If this is a two-week war maximum, because the U.S. does not have what it takes to go for a long attack against Iran. They could do it maybe for two weeks. That's it. So the Chinese could refrain to do anything during two weeks because they have enough reserves.

And the Iranians in this, I'm talking about a very optimistic scenario. The Iranians wouldn't have to block the straight of home moves because then they will also. lose a lot because their oil goes through Hormuz as well. So there's no necessity to block the, like launch a lot of sea mines everywhere. It would take months to demine these sea mines, blocking the navigation in the strait of Hormuz. But if the Americas would launch a hardcore shock and awe attack, there's no question that the first thing the Iranians would do would be to block the straits. And they already gained blocking the strait of Hormuz.

different ways. And if they block the streets of Hormuz, Jeff Sachs says the price of gasoline at the pump in the U.S. will go up to $10 a gallon. At least. That would be disastrous for Trump politically. Completely. And not to mention that Trump would be responsible for collapsing the global economy, Judge.

We discussed that in previous shows, the famous good, Sacks, pile of derivatives explosion, which is in the quadrillions of dollars. That's it. You can explode the global economy in less than two weeks. Do you see President Xi Jinping or President Putin picking up the phone and saying, Donald, don't do this? We have no evidence that this might happen, Judge. because there is a very perverse element into this whole equation. Never interrupt your enemy when he is committing a fatal mistake.

That's where we are, literally. Because this is very, the key of this whole story, and it was part of our discussions with our Russian interlocutors today, Trump, if he goes ahead with this attack, he'll be launching an attack against three BRICS nations. Russia, China, backing Iran. So this is part of his war against the global south, which, by the way, was fully endorsed by his Secretary of State in Munich only a few days ago.

His speech is basically, we are at war with the global south, in a very polite way in a European setting, with glasses of champagne. But that's what it is. It's a war against bricks. It's a war against the top bricks. And it's a war against the global south as a whole. Because the objective of Trump 2.0 is to recolonize the global south with Munich.

Wow. All right, Pepe. Thank you very much. I know you've had a long day. And I know it's late. It's close to midnight. It's 11. It's still early.

Oh, all right. All right. You're going to go out in the snow, I know. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead. It's not going to be next. Yes. Thank you, my dear friend. Be safe. God bless you. Thanks for everything. All the best.

All the best. Thank you, Judge. Thank you. Coming up at 3.30 on all of this, plus his unique insight on what the Israeli security forces attempted to do to our friend Tucker Carlson at Tel Aviv Airport. Who else? Max Blumenthal. 3.30 today. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.