Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar: The Resistance Gathers

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

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Thank you. I want to talk to you about the an international traveler what has been the international reaction to the confrontation between president trump and president zelensky in the oval office on the white house last friday as you have perceived it yes well i arrived in asean where i am by the way uh we should explain that to the Trump administration. ASEAN, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 10 countries, biggest partner to all of them, China. So Thailand is an excellent point of view for the whole of East Asia, in fact. And the overall feeling is perplexity, of course, but people are enjoying it immensely, like a reality show, of course. When you look at the Chinese media,

especially the best outlets in China, like Guancha, for instance, a free translation would be The Observer, which is an excellent online newspaper. And they are like baffled by what's going on. They're not gloating, of course, but essentially they could see it coming. For many reasons, especially the fact that Zelensky always thought that he was a protege of the collective West. And what happened last week at the Oval was in front of world public opinion and everybody in Asia, everybody in Asia actually watched it and rewatched it, that was the end of the free pass for basically a criminal and an illegal president

in Ukraine. It is generally generally understood except amongst european elites apparently we'll get to them in a minute that he is in fact a criminal and he is in fact no longer the head of state of ukraine nevertheless until last night, the United States was continuing to keep the spigot of military supplies flowing and keep that spigot open. Trump administration says that there's been a temporary halt. There's no way to to verify this or to gauge it, but we'll take them. We'll take them at their word. If there is a halt, I know you're not a military guy, but you know geopolitics. If there is a halt on the supplies, how much longer can they last, Ukraine? A few weeks. And, of course, I'm not a military analyst, but when I was in Donbass, what, three weeks? Less than three weeks ago uh my commander friends in Donbas from Donetsk all the way to Avdivka and ugledar they said look if we we're waiting for

the order the order means the Minister of Defense in Moscow and of course now the order might come considering that if they give the order the the collapse of the 1,000-kilometer-long front could be a matter of weeks maximum. So the commanders on the battlefield, they are very optimistic. They have the momentum, the usual Russian strategy, which is attritional war. It's working, and now they are advancing, let's say, slightly faster than before. And now with the possibility of, let's say, the whole thing stops

in the next few days, no more deliveries. What they have will be sufficient enough for a few weeks, four to five weeks. And after that, that's it. And if there's no Starlink, which is a major if at the moment, the whole Ukraine armed forces are paralyzed. Everything. Because they won't be able to communicate without Starlink. Because they won't be able to communicate. Exactly. And we know who owns Starlink.

There you go. The de facto prime minister of the United States. Why do you think Zelensky has been so reluctant to say he's in favor of peace? Is it the right-wing militias that he fears will end his life if he shows the slightest inclination towards reasonableness and away from violence? Right-wing militias is a quite diplomatic, Judge. You mean the neo-Nazis, the neo-Nazi outfits, as of battalion style, and they told Zelensky in his face over and over again, if you don't follow what we really want, that's it.

You're done. And your family is done. So this is a criminal universe, sub-universe, in fact. Apart from that, if the war stops, he loses his job and the Russian war crimes tribunal will go after Zelensky big, big time. They don't want a man to Zelensky like Mussolini hanging upside down in a public square. They want to try him for war crimes. This is meaning they will arrest him, physically seize him, and put him on trial.

This is the first I've heard of this, probably ordered by President Putin. No question about it, Judge. Of course, they are organizing the legal proceedings for months now. They're just waiting for

I would not say a ceasefire, but let's say a semi-formal end of the war to launch their war crimes legal procedure. And this is huge. So Zelensky has, and of course, the gravy train that involves the Zelensky clan and everybody around him, SBU officials, etc., which everybody in the US now knows that roughly 70% of all the weapons that are sent to Ukraine do not stay in Ukraine. So it's the opposite of Vegas. They leave. They show up in a... Where do those weapons go exactly every anywhere across the global south and and including also several nodes across the global north as well so it's all the criminal groups it grow goes cartels, it goes to all sorts of illegal organizations,

it goes to the similar neo-Nazi outfits with a similar ideology to the Azov battalion, for instance, all over the place. And, of course, this elite in the Russian Ministry of Defense and their intel services, they're making tons of money out of this. I wonder if they'll arrest Boris Johnson and Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken and Victoria Nuland. They have blood on their hands, too. And, of course, Joe Biden, he has immunity, but he has blood on his hands as well. All these people should be in the dock, Judge. There's no question about it. They're all war criminals, period.

And this is documented in Russia. Correct what I said. Biden has immunity for prosecution in American courts. He does not have immunity. I mean, he's probably non-cop. Osmentis wouldn't even understand the case against him, but he does not have immunity for war crimes in the national prosecution. All right, switching over to Netanyahu. Ramadan. He announces that he will stop the movement of food, water, and medicine into the Gaza Strip, using as a pretext for this that it is being stolen by bandits.

So they're going to starve everybody. What is the reaction to this even before the arab league assembled today the arab league assembled to do what to eat the collective kebab they are everybody knows they're a joke you know everybody knows that the arab league does not represent the arab street first of all all of their governments are compromised different levels in not only with the U.S., but with Tel Aviv as well. So they will issue the usual proclamation and nothing is going to happen de facto. We all knew that Netanyahu will do everything to stop stage two of the ceasefire. He doesn't respect ceasefires by definition. And now that it's something is approaching that could lead to,

let's say, really stop the destruction of Gaza. Gaza is 90% destruct, more or less, but stop the remaining 10% of Gaza to be totally destroyed. He will never stop at that. And there's also an element of revenge, Judge, which is exactly what I saw personally

one week ago when I visited villages in South Lebanon bordering occupied Palestine. The destruction of these villages, I think we talked about it in our last conversation. They were after the ceasefire with Lebanon. The idea returned and they raised those villages to the ground,

which is exactly what they plan to do with what remains of North Gaza. And will Trump just let him get away with this? to do with what remains of North Gaza. And will Trump just let him get away with this? Trump, the peacemaker in Ukraine, is he the financier of genocide, the way Joe Biden was? Can I ask you this question, Judge, seriously? The answer is yes. How do you see it? The answer is yes.

Yesterday, the Secretary of State of the United States of America, in my opinion, committed an act of perjury when he lied under oath. He swore on a document he filed with the Congress that Israel is in a state of emergency and requires $4 billion in military equipment bypassing the Congress. Tony Blinken did this on a regular basis. What is the emergency?

Why bypass a Congress that's in Netanyahu's pocket. Why do all of this unless they know that Bibi is preparing to attack somebody with something and he needs more equipment with which to do it? Exactly. And the only state of emergency that I would say the whole global majority can see at the moment is that they are committing a genocide. This is in itself a state of emergency, an estate of exception, like the great Italian sociologist and analyst Giorgio Agamben has described. This is a state of exception, a state of siege, which now has been... This is how it's conformed legally and illegally, the current genocide, which has not ended yet. So who is the resistance and what are they going to do?

That's a very, very good question. I used the resistance metaphorically, in fact, comparing these back-to-back trips to the front lines in Donbass, or very close to the front lines in Donbass, and then one week later to those villages in South Lebanon bordering occupied Palestine. It's a very humbling experience, emotionally very powerful, but you can connect the resistance on a Christian Orthodox vein in Russia, in Novorossiya, with the resistance in a Shiite vein in South Lebanon. And all that compounded with that extraordinary ceremony, which was the Nasrallah funeral in Beirut. So these are different aspects, let's say East and West, or Middle Eastern in the sense of West Asian and Eastern Europe of resistance. At the same time, we can extrapolate and talk about resistance in terms of the Chinese resistance, the new trade war that

Trump 2.0 is launching, not only against Canada and Mexico, as we all know, but also against China. And the Chinese immediately retributed with their own 15% tariffs on a series of American products. Tomorrow, very important, Wednesday, it's the beginning of the two sessions in Beijing, where Chinese legislators get together to frame, organize, suggest, and of their spokesmen said something extraordinary. It was basically a short message to the whole global South. Essentially, this is what he said. Are you looking for a credible, reliable, global partner? It's us. Work with us.

So this is going to be heard from Latin America to Africa to West Asia, Central Asia, and here, Southeast Asia. It's the Chinese saying, look, we are reliable. We are not going to sanction anybody. We just want to trade with all of you. So bring me back to the animosity in the Arab street about the genocide in Gaza, the destruction of South Lebanon, the seizure of portions of Syria, and the threats to attack Iran. Exactly. Let me add to that. Colonel McGregor says that General Al-Sisi is under tremendous pressure to begin military actions against Israel, and his military is many times the size of the IDF. True, because let's say a great deal of the Egyptian military represents the Arab street.

There's no question. And the overall, the consensus all across the Arab street, and this goes way beyond Sunni and Shiite, and this spreads to all the lands of Islam as well. They clearly see the direct connection of the genocide in Gaza with what's happening in Syria now, where Syria is being divided, in fact is already de facto divided between Turkey and Israel with support to the Hugo Boss-clad former moderate rebel beheader, which, by the way, is visiting Egypt nowadays. And, of course, the resistance of Hezbollah and the Houthis,

which also, by the way, if I'm not mistaken, today were designated by Marco Rubio as a terrorist organization. So this is very, very serious. This means that Marco Rubio has no clue what the Houthis and al-Sarala are all about. The only thing that he sees in front of him is that, ah, they are attacking Israeli-related cargo, ships, etc. So this is, from the point of view of the Trump administration, this is, it's literally antagonizing practically the whole Arab street. Because now the Houthis, and this I talked to a lot of Yemenis in Beirut, they were, well, they were the coolest guys on top of it, very well informed, and they were struck at how popular they are in all the Sunni nodes of the Arab street, you know. The Houthis are even popular

in parts of Beirut. They are essentially business Sunni Christians and glitzy like you are in Dubai or in Abu Dhabi. And they respect the Houthis because they know exactly what the Houthis stand for. Once again, resistance. So this overall, this broader theme

of resistance, it's even transcending this Sunni Shiite divide. This is extraordinary. And extraordinary in the sense that those ridiculous leaders at the Arab League, they simply cannot understand. They are too compromised to understand that. And they think that they can do anything and the Arab street won't do anything.

You have laid the background and Colonel McGregor fully agrees with you, for a regional war which would probably draw the United States in. Will Donald Trump, the peacemaker, say to Netanyahu what he has effectively said to Zelensky? Enough is enough. Stop now. Or, because of the donor class in the United States, Mrs. Edelman and her colleagues, will he not do that? Will he not be the peacemaker in the Middle East that he apparently, thanks be to God, is going to be in Ukraine? Well, Trump would have to tell

Netanyahu, you don't have the cards. And he doesn't. Netanyahu doesn't have any cards against anything, especially against a multi-front, I wouldn't say war, not yet, but a multi-front rebellion of all the neighbors, Sunni and Shiite. Obviously, Syria is not going to be part of it because Syria at the moment is completely devastated. And Southern Syria is not going to be part of it because Syria at the moment is completely devastated. And its southern city is controlled by Israel, essentially. But Lebanon, even Jordan, Egypt, well, the Persian petromonarchies, of course, they're not going to do anything.

They only care about money. Iran, of course, and Iraq. So does Israel have enough to fight a multi-front confrontation? No, they don't. Do they have popular support to do that? No, they don't. Even though most of the Israeli population is completely brainwashed. Can they afford to do this?

No, they can't. Do they have enough weapons to do that, even with the the new batches which is still going to be sent by the Americans? That's not likely. So that's a very, very weak hand. And what he plans to accomplish, what would he dream of accomplishing

if they could not and this is, I was discussing with Lebanese at the border, they could not even take a village of 600 houses where they threw everything against it. And the local resistance of this village said, no, you're not going to take our village. And they didn't. And that's why they came back after the ceasefire and raised it to the ground. Revenge.

It's a revenge-killing machine, essentially. This is what they excel at. Pepe Escobar, it's a pleasure, no matter where you are or what the time of day is. Thank you, my dear friend. We'll see you again next week. All the best. See you next week, Judge. It was a pleasure.

Greetings from Asia. week all the best see you next week judge you know it was a pleasure greetings from asia coming up later today at one o'clock professor glenn deason at three o'clock aaron mate at four o'clock professor john meersheimer judge napolitano for judging freedom I'm out.