Judging Freedom - Phi Giraldi: Golan Heights on the Menu for Israel.

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Phi Giraldi: Golan Heights on the Menu for Israel.See 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 Wednesday, December 11th, 2024. Phil Giraldi joins us now. Phil, a pleasure, my dear friend. We have, of course, been talking about the overthrow of President Sadat, former President Assad, excuse me, in Syria all week. But I want to start by asking you, why would your former colleagues in the CIA have fomented this overthrow by supporting jihadists who cut people's heads and hands off? Well, the simple answer to that, of course, is that because the people at the top of the organization, who are well known to be lacking in morals and scruples, have ordered them to do it. And that's the way the U.S. government works to its discredit and has been working for

a long time. And as I've mentioned to you a number of times in our conversations, you know, I worked for, I was an operations officer. I was overseas. I was a spy. And I worked with a lot of people who were in those same roles. And I never saw uh i never witnessed anyone faking information or withholding information or anything like that uh that kind of activity that that takes place at the top levels and i think it was particularly the asian was particularly poisoned by george tennant uh not, in fact, himself an experienced intelligence officer, but he was a real experienced bootlicker. And he knew how to get promoted. He was a Senate staffer, and he knew how to get promoted. He knew how to work the system.

And he hung around for a long time. He was still with us when the Democrats got back into the presidency. So, you know, it's the way the system works. I would say if you talk to a military officer who had kind of a similar experience as mine in terms of where he was and what he was doing, he would probably say the same thing. And I certainly know State Department officers would probably say the same thing. And I know, certainly, no State Department officers do regularly say the same thing. But from their perspective, from George Tenet's perspective, or whoever actually makes these decisions, and by the way, would decisions like overthrowing Assad have been made by the President of the United States, or by someone like Tenet, or whoever was the President of the United States or by someone like Tenet or whoever was the director of the CIA at the time? Well, as I know I've suggested to you,

I believe this was basically the overthrow of Assad and everything else associated with it was an intelligence operation from start to finish. And I believe the ones who were implementing this and pushing it were the Israelis. And they found a willing ear in the current administration in Washington, which is trying to lock up a lot of foreign policy issues in ways that Donald Trump will not be able to shift them. So I see we're starting from right from when Israel attacked southern Lebanon, that this was a coherent plan right from then on. The idea was to take Hezbollah out of the fighting, which they did. Once they succeeded in doing that, they got a phony ceasefire,

which gave Israel a lot of latitude to do whatever it wanted. And then the next thing we know, we're invading Syria, and it's the same players, and the same players doing the same thing. So I would say, let's look to, I think Erdogan in this case was probably a follow-on, but I think this is basically the White House with their Amos Hochstein specialist there in Lebanon doing the negotiating, setting this up with the Israelis and the Israeli leadership, and also with the White House. And I think that it just went from there. I think you're 100% correct, Phil. The so-called ceasefire between the IDF and Hezbollah was a deception, a fraud in order to get Hezbollah out of the picture and free up the IDF.

Did the United States participate in the overthrow of Assad beyond funding the training of al-Jalani's troops? Did American troops have anything to do with this last weekend? Yeah, there were a bunch of airstrikes that were carried out from the U.S. base at, what is it, Al-Tanf, in the southern corner near Jordan. There were a bunch of airstrikes that were carried out by the U.S., not much reported in the U.S. media, but they killed a number of people that they claimed, now this is the funny part, they claimed that they were insurgents or they were terrorists. And here we were funding and training and directing the terrorists at the same time as we're coming out with this. Well, this is a ridiculous question I'm going to ask you. Does the CIA

have moral scruples? Well, you can answer that right away. But would there be any moral scruples about funding a group of terrorists that was specifically identified by the State Department as a terrorist group in light of the federal criminal laws that prohibit conspicuous aid to terrorist organizations? A. B. Would there be any CIA scruples about engaging directly or indirectly with al-Jalani, as to whom there is a $10 million bounty on his head, funded in large measure by the American State Department? Well, I would bet that there were a lot of people in the going up the ladder at CIA who had real problems with this policy as it was evolving. But again, the thing is, the decision makers are not people like me. The decision makers in these organizations now have been corrupted.

They're basically politicians, and they're people who are very much into it for the money and other things this is uh this is what's happened to our country and and these people are are in control so yeah there would have been a lot of objections and you're you're the lawyer i'm sure you see very clearly that this is illegal for the U.S. government to be dealing with terror, identified and labeled terrorist groups for a guy like this fellow with his $10 million bounty on his head. I mean, this is insanity. This is this goes beyond anything that, well, that Donald Donald Trump that Joe Biden has done recently and that's saying a lot so I think it's her let's look at it as a if this was a comprehensive plan that was pushed by Washington and Israel and this is where we are now they're going to divide Syria up into three parts uh there will be no more Syria. This will be the first time

this has happened since Russia and Germany invaded Poland back in 1939. Wow. You ask if it's illegal. It's profoundly illegal. There are people sitting in federal penitentiaries because they provided material aid to terrorist organizations. There are people sitting in federal penitentiaries because they provided material aid to terrorist organizations. There are people in federal penitentiaries who were duped into FBI stings and thought they were providing material aid to terrorist organization. The whole thing was concocted by the FBI. And these people, too, are in federal prisons for violating this very statute that whatever CIA agents, officers, analysts, operatives, whatever you want to call them, who gave substantial or material aid to Al-Jalani and his people violated. But I suppose because since the president wanted it done, nobody will be prosecuted for it. It's simply reprehensible that there is no moral standard to American foreign policy. Is there any American national security interest that you can think of served by removing President Assad from office? Or this is only and totally U.S. at the service of Netanyahu and company?

That's exactly what it is. I mean, the point is, you know, Syria has never threatened the United States in any way, shape, or form. And there's a whole history of the United States ever since the Syria Accountability Act of 2003. People talk about, you know, later on, 2011, the Arab Spring and so on and so forth, which were all contrived. But they've been going after Syria since 2003. And the reason they're going after Syria is because that's what Israel wants. And the United States, every time it's confronted with an interest of its own, which is maybe I would really like to see a U.S. interest called peace in the world. Every time we see confronted by that, the U.S. comes up with another absurd rationalization,

most recently spouted by this fellow, the spokesman, what was it, Miller, who is now, of course, saying that Israel has a right to occupy, Israel is invading the downed part of Syria right now, and it's been bombing them to the tune of Israel admitted this morning, 450 aerial attacks on targets in Syria. So this is what Israel is doing, and this clown Miller says, oh, yeah, well, this is a self-defense on the part of Israel. Two days ago it was 120. Now it's up to 450. This must be Netanyahu's dream to expand the borders of Israel. Who thought that it would reach into Syria? Who thought that it would happen this quickly and with this minimal, if any, maybe nominal, maybe none, maybe no resistance? I would assume that no resistance is due to the fact that

either the CIA or more likely MI6 would have this kind of reach, that they got several generals among the Syrian army, Syrian Arab army, and they bribed them heavily, and they told them they would be rewarded after this is all over, and we'll get rid of these bad guys, these Alawites and al-Basad. And I think there's an element of that that keeps lurking in the back of my mind as a possibility, that these people have been heavily bribed to just roll over would um bill burns the director of the cia who seems to have spent much of his time in the last year attempting to uh negotiate either return of the hostages from hamas or a ceasefire with lebanon

it's not clear to me which one of these negotiations he was with. I think Hamas. I think Hochstein was involved in this. Would Burns have been aware of this? Would he have approved it? Would he be reporting to Joe Biden or to whomever he reports, Tony Blinken or Jake Sullivan, on all of this? Well, first of all, he's been all over the place in the Middle East for at least the past year. And yeah, he would have absolutely had to know about it. And if he had to know about it, and he had to basically approve it, he probably was instrumental in making it work. So this is the way the system turns, and he was certainly part of it i and i i i liked it i i have a good impression of him uh from his career as a diplomat right when he was the u.s ambassador to

moscow yeah and i wish he had kept up with that right i wish he had continued to do that. How do you explain the bizarre alliance between Israel and Turkey, particularly in light of some of the horrific things that President Erdogan said about Prime Minister Netanyahu? Well, I think it's an alliance of convenience. Turkey, if things had gone awry in this attempt to overthrow al-Assad, Turkey would have had the muscle to kind of, you know, really step in. second largest army in nato and it's a well-equipped well-trained army that's had certainly a lot of experience in in dealing with the kurds so this would have been as kind of a erase in the hole as it were and of course turkey has uh major interests in in actually genuine interests in in the north of syria because of theish presidents. And this has been kind of an issue for a long time in the Turkish mind. I know when I lived in Istanbul that it was an issue that when we had meetings with our counterparts in Turkish intelligence, this issue would always come up.

What were we, the Americans, doing to help the Turks with the Kurd problem? And so there's some deep roots there, but I think this was kind of an alliance of convenience driven by Israeli interests and supported by the United States because the United States always supports Israeli interests. Well, the United States also supports the Kurds, notwithstanding the Erdoganian wish to eliminate them from the face of the earth. Yeah, but there are different bunches of Kurds. And the U.S. has, right from the beginning, when it put troops in Syria, it formed an alliance with some of the Turkish, the Kurdish militias. But these were Kurdish. You have to realize the Kurdish nationalist

push is multinational. There is a large group of Kurds in Syria, a large group of kurds in turkey in fact by some estimates 20 of of uh turks are actually ethnically kurds and uh there's there are turks there are kurds in iraq uh so the the the kurdish dream for a long time has been to create a kurdish state that pulls all these bits together, and it would be right smack dab in the middle there, taking land from Syria, from Iraq, and from Turkey. How do you explain the Kremlin's seeming either indifference or throwing up its hands and allowing Assad to be forced out of power and actually providing him and his family with asylum? Well, I think the worm started to turn a little bit too quickly for the Russians to respond to it because they only have limited forces inside Syria. There's a naval port and there's an airport

and a few other troops scattered around. But that's all. They didn't have an effective force that could have intervened. And to pull together a force that could have intervened would have taken a lot more time and also would have had creative problems in terms of the resources that are committed to Ukraine. What is the state of American-Russian relations today? I would imagine it's, even though they're anticipating the arrival on the scene of President-elect Trump, I would imagine it's pretty bad. I'm going to play a clip for you in a minute or so from the Russian

foreign ministry spokeswoman encouraging Russians in the U.S. to come home and Russians contemplating Russians in Russia contemplating going to the U.S. not to go. But before I play that clip, how low have things sunk in the Biden years? I think they're as low as they've ever been since the days of Boris Yeltsin, when people liked what was going on in Russia because Russia was being looted. No, I think they're as bad as can be because we are not talking. And that's the fundamental issue. If you're really in a situation where you're at a standoff with a foreign power, and that foreign power is powerful enough to threaten you, you have to be thinking that way. You have to be thinking, talk, talk, talk is better than war, war, war. I forget who said that. Was it Churchill? I believe that it was. I believe even though you and I are not fans of Churchill, we occasionally quote him. He had a fabulous way with words. You're right. He said, jaw, jaw is better than wah, wah.

That's right. In his unique way of rhyming. Here's this foreign ministry spokeswoman. We've heard her before, Maria Zakharova. Her English is pretty good. But I'd like you to tell me if you think this is hyperbolic or real. Cut number 14. Seeing the confrontation in the Russian-American relations because of the official Washington, they are on the verge of breaking. The trips,

private and business trips to U.S. are fraught with serious risks. There is a literal hunt by the American law enforcement and intelligence service for our citizens, And there is a fraud scheme of luring out Russian citizens abroad. So how is it happening? They send invitations with some beneficial commercial or tourist offers. After that,

the people that were targeted are detained and then they're extradited to the American jurisdiction according to the extradition agreements. And there is a full list of countries that cooperate with the U.S. in the – regarding the extradition. It will be on our website. That is why we urge during the celebrations and in the future to refrain from any trips to the US or any allied satellite states, first of all Canada

and countries of the EU with some exceptions, if it isn't an emergency, of course. This was not said at the height of the Cold War. This was said earlier today. What is she driving at? What is the Kremlin's view, in your view, of the United States of America today and the state of Russian-American relationships under the administration of Joe Biden and Antony Blinken? Well, I would have to say, to be fair, that this is a two-way street. There have certainly been a number of instances where the FBI or local regulatory authorities in the United States have harassed Russians, have caused Russian businesses, like for example RT, Russia Today, which was a good thing in the United States. It gave us a different perspective on news, caused it to shut down. This has been going on for some time from the united states but of course there have also been some notable instances where american athletes and other visitors have been

harassed so i think she's making a very good point and if the relationship were better, these sorts of things would not be happening. But she's just saying, if you travel either way, it's at your own risk because the countries are angry at each other and are willing to do things that under normal circumstances they might not do. Phil Giraldi, thank you, my dear friend. Thank you for allowing me to pick your brain on a variety of topics today. As you may know, we're within a few hundred subscriptions of our goal of 500,000, half a million by Christmas. I think we will hit that goal sometime tonight or sometime tomorrow. Chris and Sonia and I speculated that we might hit it while you were on. And Chris has all kinds of fireworks and everything ready to go.

You'll see them tomorrow. But you've played a major role in this. We will, of course, keep going. And our next goal will be $750,000, then a million. But for a show that's only been around three years, our growth has been extraordinary and in large measure to you and your colleagues. So thank you very much and look forward to seeing you next week, my dear friend. Thank you very much. I look forward to seeing you, too. Thank you. Tomorrow, a full day for you.

At 10 in the morning, Professor Gilbert Doctorow. At 11.15 in the morning, Max Blumenthal at 2 in the afternoon, a new guest for you, a former British diplomat by the name of Ian Proud, and at 3 in the afternoon, our dear friend, just back from Ireland, he may still be in Ireland, Matt Ho. Thank you for watching. Remember to like and subscribe. Help us get over that finish line while we're sleeping or while we're on air tomorrow morning. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!