Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar: Russia, China, and Global Cooperation

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Pepe Escobar: Russia, China, and Global CooperationSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, September 10th, 2024. Pepe Escobar joins us live from Moscow. Pepe, my dear friend, always a pleasure. It's the wee hours of the night, but thank you very much. Only 11 p.m. so much. All right. God love you. I want to talk to you about your time in Vladivostok at the Economic Forum, and I want to talk to you about the column you wrote about it,

Russia, China, and Global Cooperation. In order to ease into that, I want to begin by asking you about some of the more recent developments covered and uncovered in the media in Russia. This is totally off the front pages now. In fact, it's totally off all of the media in the U.S. as far as I can tell. What is the status of the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk? Are they still being reinforced with other Ukrainian troops? Are they getting food supplies, ammunition, and fuel? What is happening there? Well, that was one of the subjects of the dinner.

The dinner just came before talking to you, Judge. And one of my very good intel sources, basically he told me that there are less than 10,000 remaining Ukrainian troops, and essentially they are encircled. There's only one way for them to go back, and if they go back, the Russians are going to pass, and the Russians will keep on advancing on this Ukrainian retreat. So the whole gamble is essentially over. And that adds to the desperation of the NATO stun exits, let's put it this way, which now they are fabricating another reason to go over another red line, saying that Iran is sending missiles to Russia, which they are. They have a strategic military partnership as well.

So now this would be the excuse for something that is already approved, but for all practical purposes in the public sphere, will be approved before the end of this week, of Ukrainian strikes deep into the Russian Federation. This means another red line. Yes, please go ahead. Here are two well-known public liars on Kursk, and they're very powerful people. One is Sir Peter Moore, the head of MI6, and the other is Bill Burns, the head of the CIA. This will aggravate you, but I want you to hear it. Cut number nine, Chris. Typically audacious and bold on the part of the Ukrainians to try and change the game in a way. And I think they have, to a degree, changed the narrative around it.

The Kursk offensive is a significant tactical achievement. It's not only been a boost in Ukrainian morale, it has exposed some of the vulnerabilities of Putin's Russia and of his military. I am sure that your contact from dinner would say this is hogwash. Oh, absolutely. He was practically laughing about it, Judge. Well, first of all, because Burns, don't forget that Burns was an American ambassador in Russia. He obviously didn't learn anything about the way Russia works, much less about the Russian military and the Minister of Defense. And Moore is a joke in itself. Moore could be in a Monty Python sketch, in fact. It's

absolutely ridiculous. But the fact that this interview that they gave, and I read something about it on the Financial Times, in fact, this is the legitimation of the next red line that is going to be broken within the next few days. A decision that was already made, which strikes deep inside the Russian Federation and strikes against civilian targets. Because the strikes that we had this past 24 hours, they were against civilian buildings. They were drones against civilian buildings, including a building here in the outskirts of Moscow. PASTOR BARRY. Now, we understand that 140 drones were fired. The Russians disabled 139 of them, but one of them got through and killed a woman.

PASTOR BARRY. Exactly, got through to an apartment building and killed a woman. Exactly. So the way this plays out here in Russian civil society, it's very, very serious. And of course, people who were, even in the Moscow area, who have been following what is sometimes described as the almost war. Now they know that the war is coming to them here in the capital as well. This changes everything. And this changes the calculations of the Kremlin as well, which has been exhibiting, we can say, a sort of Taoist patience for too long. Well, then what do you, what do your colleagues expect President Putin to do about it? I mean, according to our military people, the Russian defenses of Moscow, air defenses

of Moscow are the best in the world. They are. And one of these got through and killed an innocent civilian. What does that do to President Putin's thinking, if anything? If you launch 140 drones, the possibility that one of them will go through, it's there. And that's exactly what happened. Can you imagine if you launch 500 drones?

And now this is a war of terror. And this is something that many of us have been talking about for a few months now. But now this is after the Kursk debacle completely. The plan B or C, which was discussed by Moore and Burns in person, is this war of terror and against essentially civilian targets. Some military installations might be targets for this new so-called Ukrainian missile offensive starting later this week. But essentially what they have been doing is attacking civilians. Just like in Kursk, most of the victims were civilians in the beginning. And by the way, my source told me that the response, the Russian response was extremely swift and they really decimated the best Ukrainian forces in a matter of 24 to 48 hours. Which response was this? The military academy?

Yes, absolutely. And what is still in the air, which is a very touchy subject because it involves, of course, a state secret. It's not that they were more or less waiting for something to happen because Kursk, according to my source, was not a priority. So this opens a Pandora's box of, okay, they knew that something would happen, but why they were not more forcible? Because they knew there were at least 10,000, 15,000 Ukrainian troops and some of their best divisions advancing in Kursk. Then comes the swift response. The swift response was already, let's say, more or less prepared by the general staff.

And it happened, essentially, the bulk of the response in the first 24 to 48 hours. And they submitted the best Ukrainian forces. And now it's a mopping up operation, which is progressing on a daily basis, relatively fast. Colonel McGregor reports that 720 were killed in the attack on the military school, including instructors, Poles and Swedes. Do we know if any of the instructors, are you allowed to say if your sources tell you, were Americans? No, Judge, no. There is no, I would say, surefire confirmation there were Americans. Basically Europeans, Brits, Poles, essentially. No word about Americans so far, especially no word about Americans coming from the Ministry of Defense.

So this moment is a wall of silence. Transitioning to the... Well, let me ask you one more question. There was a report about Ukrainian drones dropping liquid lead on Russian troops. Has that been verified? Not yet, Judge. In fact, I didn't have time to go into it. I read about it in Russian telegram channels today, but not verified yet. It's quite possible, considering that they have been using cluster munitions, for instance.

So this is all... The big picture is this is essentially now a war of terror. And it's crazy because we are celebrating tomorrow, 23 years of 9-11, when the war on terror was launched on the same day, when at 11 a.m. New York time, Osama bin Laden was already being blamed for what happened on 9-11, and the war on terror started on the same afternoon, in fact. 23 years later, we have a war of terror perpetrated by a U.S. vassal in Ukraine. Before we get to Vladivostok, this past weekend,

one of the prime movers of the aggression against Russia by using the proxy Ukraine. One of the prime movers of the coup in 2014, no longer in the government, Victoria Nuland, acknowledged publicly that both Moscow and Kyiv had initially sought a diplomatic solution in early 2022 had come to an agreement in terms, and then she and Boris Johnson, then the Prime Minister of Great Britain, persuaded President Zelensky to drop that agreement. That would be consistent with what President Putin told my friend and colleague Tucker Carlson a year ago, when you recall President Putin told my friend and colleague, Tucker Carlson, a year ago, when you recall President Putin held his fingers apart to show that the agreement was an inch and a half thick. It was substantial detail.

He even said every page was initialed by both sides. Absolutely correct, Judge. And all of us who were in Istanbul at the time, I was one of them. We considered that the thing was practically clinched at the last day. And Turkish officials, they were beaming. Like, you know, we made it. You know, we brought them here. They sat on the table in Istanbul and they reached an agreement. That was, of course, before Nuland and Boris Johnson's intervention on behalf of the masters, of course.

So what Nuland said is basically confirmed what all of us who were in Istanbul already knew. I want to play a clip for you of something that you saw when it was live. You were in the audience. Yes. Chris, let's play six and seven back to back. As I have consistently said, we cannot use the narrative of many in the media or Western capitals that it all began with the 7th of October, Hamas attack. It all began with colonization. It all began with the Nakba in 1948.

It all began because of the reluctance to accept the resolutions of the United Nations consistently and of continued harassment of settlers. I think the majority of countries have taken a position, including the recognition of the state of Palestine. But why is it not happening? Because of the intransigence of Israel and unfortunately with the total support of the United States. In fact, giving him a standing

ovation when atrocities are being committed. That's why I ask my colleagues, even in the West, where's the humanity? Where do you talk about justice? Why do you go and preach to us about human rights and democracy? Why is there contradiction when it comes to treatment of issues happening in the world? And again, you know?

Did you see President Putin's eyebrows go up? You probably saw. Yeah, eyebrows went up. But in the room, Anwar Ibrahim is an excellent orator, Judge. I have had the pleasure to follow him for the past 30 years. The Malaysians are my neighbors. I live in Thailand as well. And Anwar Ibrahim started as an activist. He's extremely popular, not only in Malaysia, but all across ASEAN. He's extremely popular in China. He had a

huge problem with Mahathir and Mahathir Prime Minister. He tried to get rid of Anwar in the end, they had to reconcile. And the fact that on stage we had Russia, China, and ASEAN with Anwar Ibrahim representing ASEAN, this was enormous because this is a strategic partnership between the two top BRICS and one of the largest trade commercial blocks in the world, ASEAN, which continues to develop, and it's going to be one of the big, big, big players in the 21st century. The word that you're using, ASEAN, A-S-E-A-N, is an acronym. What does it stand for? Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Basically, the ASEAN 10, the 10 Southeast Asians. All right. So is this like a BRICS? This is an Economic Association of Southeast Asian Nations. And also political, George. Very, very important. And this is something that Anwar and in other sessions during the forum, for instance, there was an excellent Russia-ASEAN session during the forum.

The key concept of ASEAN is unity in diversity and consensus. All ASEAN decisions are consensual. So you have on the same table the Burmese, the Indonesians, the Filipinos, the Vietnamese, the Thais, the Malaysians, and they reach consensus, including, for instance, the role of fifth columnists like the current government of the Philippines. Everybody sits on the same table, and it's a very Asian thing, because in Asia, diplomacy is still cultivated. No loss of face. Solutions have to accommodate everybody. Everybody discusses, and then you reach a consensus. It's extremely civilized, and we have a mix of Buddhist, Hinduist, Islam civilizations and heirs of great civilizations.

And it's an example for the global South as a whole of how diplomacy works at the highest level. And it's fantastic, in fact, the fact that half of ASEAN wants to be part of BRICS. Thailand has officially, a few weeks ago, said we want to be part of BRICS. Thailand has officially, a few weeks ago, said we want to be part of BRICS. Malaysia, Anwar told Putin directly that we are introducing our official application. Indonesia already did that. Myanmar as well. And Vietnam. So we have five of the most powerful players of the ASEAN 10 who want to be part of BRICS. All right. So why was this ASEAN gathering in Russia? Why was President Putin there? And why were the Chinese there? Exactly. That's the beauty of an Asian way of showing to the world, to the global majority especially, that the Russia-China strategic

partnership is also a partnership with the 10 members of ASEAN of Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is as important to Russia and China as West Asia or Central Asia or South Asia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal. So Russia and China, they are cultivating all these poles, I prefer to call nodes, to quote Ambassador Charles Freeman, the multi-nodal world, the way China and Russia are thinking, they are integrating all these different poles and nodes across Asia. And one of the most important is Southeast Asia, because Southeast Asia is extremely dynamic economically. They have at least two future superpowers, if not three. Vietnam and Indonesia guaranteed, Thailand and Malaysia quite possible. And they have, of course, the financial center of Southeast Asia, Singapore as well. So it's

immensely important in terms of the overall picture across Asia. And if we talk about the heartland, essentially Central Asia, the Central Asian stance, the rimland of the continent of Eurasia is Southeast Asia, essentially. And they are strategically important, commercially important, and geopolitically more and more important. No wonder the Americans will keep trying to provoke color revolutions in Southeast Asia. What does the ASEAN group, if there is a collective consensus, think of the G7? They don't pay too much attention to the G7. let's say it's a formal attention because Europeans especially, they are very much present especially in Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia. So they are all over. European companies of course do business all across Southeast Asia. But

politically they know that the Southeast Asians know that Europe is basically a midget, politically. And their problem, their main problem as a group and taking these consensual decisions is how to balance the U.S. against China or the U.S. and China. And try not to give the U.S. too many reasons to keep provoking color revolutions. I was in Thailand a few weeks ago, and I was hearing from very, very well-informed Thai analysts that the risk of a color revolution in Thailand persists. Indonesia, the same thing. They're changing the government now, and they are very much afraid that the Americans will try to come up with something because Indonesia is becoming a superpower in Southeast Asia. When you call it a color revolution, is that a dog whistle, a code phrase for instigated by the CIA and MI6?

Essentially, yes, George. Yes. Essentially, yes, George, yes. Essentially, yes. Or to give a graphic example to all of you, our audience, what the Americans tried to pull off in Hong Kong in 2019.

It was a color revolution that failed in Hong Kong because the Hong Kong elites, the people who made Hong Kong wealthy, rich, and one of the wealthiest places on earth of hypercapitalism, they said, we don't want these people here. They're destroying our city. They're destroying the city that we built.

So that's why the Cold War Revolution could not possibly work. But in terms of brainwashing, especially the young population of Hong Kong who had never been to China, that was very, very dangerous. Can you imagine that we had in 2019 depredations of metro stations in downtown Hong Kong by these people, instrumentalized by the US embassy in Hong Kong, which is an enormous fortress. We had tapes and photos of American agents talking to their, you know, vassals in the streets, organizing the disturbances and the demonstrations. So this is something that when the Thais looked at it, Indonesians looked at it and said, we don't want this happening here.

But the risk remains. What is your view? I know you're in Moscow now, about how much longer the war, which started out as a special military operation, but now is a war, will last? Nobody has a clear answer to that, including intelligence sources or excellent analysts from Russian think tanks,

because we don't know. The only people who know the planning and how it's going to develop is the Russian general staff. And obviously this is opaque for everybody, apart from Putin and Patrushev, Medvedev, four or five people at the highest level of governments. Nobody else knows what the general staff has planned. They have planned all scenarios that you can imagine for a resolution in Ukraine. By the way, none of these scenarios tie up

with the current American initiative of trying to get a ceasefire in Ukraine, preferably before the US elections in November. No. And now, with the fact that we have a war of terror conducted in Kursk, and soon maybe spreading deeper into Belgorod, other regions of Russia.

Lavrov himself, can you imagine, the portrait of the gentleman diplomat, he's saying, no, that's it. This is going to be decided in the battlefield, and the only feasible solution for all that is unconditional surrender. Wow. Here's President Zelensky, harshly critical of President Putin, and seems to be rejecting the fact that he's confronting unconditional surrender. Cut number three. Putin wants more Ukraine to occupy than he wants security for Russia.

He doesn't care about Russian land and people. He just wants to grab as much of our land and as many of our cities as possible. Where does language like that get him? Nowhere. First of all, because this is total bullshit. The Russians don't want to occupy land. The Russians want to liberate the whole of Donetsk and Luhansk, especially, and Zaporizhia and Kherson. That's it. If these provocations continue, if the red lines keep being trespassed, if there are attacks, inside the Russian Federation, they will expand the area that should be liberated, according to Russia, going all the way to everything to the east of the Dnieper. And, of course, Odessa will be back on the table again. Nobody's talking about Odessa for the moment. Odessa is the big interrogation point in this whole story.

Pepe Escobar, pleasure, my dear friend. We're deeply grateful for you coming to us in the wee hours of the morning, and we're always grateful for your analysis and your candor. God bless you, my man. Thank you so much. My pleasure, Judge. We hope you come back in another week or so. All the best. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Coming tomorrow, before I go through tomorrow, please remember to like and subscribe. We're up to 440,000,

just about, subscriptions. It's the middle of September. Our goal is a half a million by Christmas. Please help us get there. If you like this message, if you like this alternative media, please help us to spread it by liking and subscribing. Tomorrow, Wednesday, Scott Ritter at 11 in the morning.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson at 2 in the afternoon. Phil Giraldi at 3 in the afternoon. Aaron Maté at 4 in the afternoon. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. freedom.