Judging Freedom - Phil Giraldi: How Fruitless is Collective Punishment?

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

In this episode, Judge and Phil touch on some controversial topics. Phil suggests, that with continued funding to Israel and other countries, the US is essentially paying for war crimes. 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 Monday, October 23rd, 2023. In one minute, Phil Giraldi will join us right here live. What damage is Israel doing, not just to Gaza, not just to itself, but to the world by its invasion of the Gaza Strip? But first this. There is an organization that still backs Obamacare, gun control, and extreme transgender policies that endanger our kids. They claim to be bipartisan, but last year, 95% of their donations went to the Democrats. AARP does not represent the values

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I'm proud to endorse AMAC, and I encourage you to join today. Let's send AARP a strong message that they don't represent conservative American seniors. Join AMAC today at amac.us forward slash judge. That's amac.us forward slash j-u-d-g-e. Welcome back, Phil. Thanks very much for your time, of course. Does the United States States support the unbridled invasion of Gaza by the Israeli military? And if so, does it appreciate the consequences of such support? Well, of course, that's the fundamental question that we're confronting here uh the extent to which the united states is actually capable of of supporting its own national interests which would include not getting involved

in in places like ukraine and israel gaza unless there is a compelling national interest that drives the process. And in this case, the United States was not threatened by either the Russians or the Gazans, but yet it's fully engaged in the process now of supporting countries that are basically not doing any good for us. And this $105 billion that's going now is a con job. It's a package because Biden is assuming that including Israel in it will be a big motivator for Congress, which is terrified of voting against Israel ever. And it also includes a smaller sum to, as they put it, fortify the southern border of the United States. Now, that's obscene. And for the last three years, Biden has done everything but fortify or even defend or even uphold the law

when it comes to our southern border. It's another bit of sugar thrown into the package and in an attempt to get this money out of Congress. So does Biden, does Tony Blinken, does Lloyd Austin, do they collectively have the ability to dial back Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Galan of Israel, as the New York Times claims this morning? Or, for domestic political reasons, do they just want to give Israel whatever it wants, no matter what its behavior is with respect to international law and common morality? Well, of course, the question is, you know, what actually goes on when Biden or Blinken is or are talking to Netanyahu and what does he understand? I think in Netanyahu's view, the United States is unable, unwilling to take any steps that make it look like they're holding

Israel accountable. And of course, accountable in this case means not giving them all the weapons they're going to be using to pulverize Gaza and kill all its people. And that also goes for the money that goes to Israel annually. And as part of this new budget, $14 billion. And that will be, of course, to pay pay for the war we're paying for a war crime i mean think about that that's exactly what we're doing israel is undeniably committing a major war crime with its attack on civilian targets and it's uh it's i it's concept of of hitting hitting the whole state and not just focusing on the military or something like that. This is a war crime, and we are paying for the war crime. And the perception and the reality in the Arab world is exactly as you've said, a war crime perpetrated by the Israelis and supported

by the United States. I guess the memory of the horrors of 9-11 and what preceded and arguably fomented that have escaped the American political leadership. Yeah, the American political leadership doesn't have much of a memory. This is recent history. The fact is, you know, these errors in judgment that seem to be coming one after another ever since 9-11 have basically not provided any learning curve. We keep making the same mistakes. The United States is in no position whatsoever to be serving as the world's policeman. The U.S. public is getting kind of waking up on that. I've been following, I always, you know, go to the media in the morning and read like the New York Times article today about alleging that the government, the morning and read like the new york times article today about uh alleging that

the government the us government is putting pressure on netanyahu to kind of hold off on his ground invasion well okay that may be true that may not be true but it seems to me that the reality is that net yahoo will make the decision so we we are in a position where we are supplying people who are belligerents in any number of wars, and we have no ability to control that process. Like where have you seen in the U.S. mainstream media the fact that over the past 10 days, Israel has attacked Syria three times. They've bombed Damascus and Aleppo airports three times, putting them out of operation. This is another war crime. They're at war with Syria, which is not at war with them, and has not done anything to them. And yet this is just kind of,

it's not, it's ignored by the media, and it's certainly ignored by the US government. And the President of the United States says, quote, American leadership holds the world together and is necessary to keep freedom alive in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. I mean, this is this is farcical. He's he's living in another world. It's it's it's hard to imagine where he comes up with this kind of stuff with these one-liners. I think I indicated in one of my recent articles that he must have a neocon script writer somewhere who was producing these lines for him. Because this is ridiculous. The United States is not guaranteeing freedom anywhere in the world. Quite the contrary.

The United States has invaded nations that did not threaten the United States. Throw Libya into that hopper. Iraq, you know. And the fact is we're killing millions of people and we're guaranteeing freedom? When Secretary of Defense Austin was asked in Israel last week if the United States could support two wars, two different fronts, two different parts of the world, of course, the questioner meant Israel versus Gaza and Ukraine versus Russia, he said, we can project power wherever we want. Was that the administration's view? And it may be the view of all administrations, Republicans as well as Democrats, I don't know, of American foreign policy, not to project peace,

but to project power. Yeah, that's an interesting kind of spin that's being put on it. He's talking about power, but the fact is power is not equivalent to being able to win two major wars simultaneously. The Secretary of the Treasury, of course, Janet Yellen, has doubled down on that. She said, oh, absolutely, we can afford two major wars simultaneously, no problem whatsoever. So let me run the clip of Secretary Austin, and then we'll analyze that and what Secretary Yellen said as well. And we remain fully able to project power and uphold our commitments and direct resources

to multiple theaters. So we will stand with Israel, even as we stand with Ukraine, the United States can walk and chew gum at the same time. And U.S. security assistance to Israel will flow in at the speed of war. The United States has Israel's back, and that is not negotiable. Now, that statement is directly defied in today's New York Times, one of the mouthpieces for the administration, which reports that a shipment of 155 millimeter artillery shells, the basic workhorse for all artillery, you know this better than I, has just been diverted from Ukraine to Israel. I didn't even know we had 155 millimeter shells left. I thought we had replaced them with cluster bombs and whatever they, maybe they found a closet of them somewhere or warehouse somewhere, but they're going to Israel. They're not going to Ukraine after having been promised and put in the pipeline for Ukraine. So, Mr. Secretary,

do you know what you're talking about? Yeah, and not only does he not know what he's talking about, I would say that his comment is, this is the first time I've seen the whole thing in full, although it was edited, but it's kind of scary uh he is basically sending the message that we are engaged with israel in this fighting that we are in this war and um you know they've been dancing around these kinds of issues uh both in ukraine and in the Middle East quite a lot but the fact is that if you're that much in bed with one of the belligerents in a process you're part of it and uh the uh what's my call it Blinken has been uh a one finding lately about the possibility that there will be attacks on U.S troops in the Middle Middle East. And in fact, there have been seven attacks

over the past week in Syria and in Iraq. And so this is something that's creeping over the horizon where the United States, one way or another, is going to become an actual belligerent in this fighting. And there's nothing to stop this process. There are no sensible people in Washington that are saying, hey, wait a minute, let's hold up on this. Here's Secretary Blinken yesterday cut number three, Chris, on the likelihood of escalation. And he inadvertently says because we're there. How concerned are you about Iran trying to escalate this war? We are concerned. In fact, we expect that there's a likelihood of escalation, escalation by Iranian proxies directed against our forces, directed against our personnel. We are taking steps to make sure that we can effectively defend our people

and respond decisively if we need to. This is not what we want, not what we're looking for. We don't want escalation. We don't want to see a second or third front develop. We don't want to see our forces or our personnel come under fire. But if that happens, we're ready for it. Forces, and why is our personnel there, Phil? Well, no reason that I can discern apart from hubris. I mean, this is scary stuff. You know, what's going on in Ukraine is one step away from a nuclear war. And what's going on in the Middle East is also one step away from a nuclear war. Israel is a nuclear-armed state. And if it had to confront Iran, it would, in my mind, use its nuclear weapons. So the United States is in a position where it's supporting things, as I observed before,

that really do no good for the American people or for the United States government. And yet they're in it up to their eyeballs. And I fail to understand what the rationale of all this is. They know damn well that they're not sustaining freedom anywhere in the world and that they're not supporting democracy everywhere in the world. This is just a sham. I don't know. It's so dangerous. It's the kind of thing I recall from back during the Iraq war when that was exploding. I can't sort of figure out how can these people who are basically intelligent, well-educated, come out with this stuff. There's something very wrong either in their education or their upbringing.

Tell me about the role of the intelligence community in this. I mean, does Joe Biden just call up Lloyd Austin and say, send an aircraft carrier and some support ships into the Eastern Mediterranean? Or is there some sort of an intel evaluation of the likely need for doing so and dangers upon doing so? Well, I would think that in this case, this is a situation where the president and his closest advisors, whoever they might be at any given moment, make the decision. But you're quite right. The intel agencies are very much involved in the process leading up to that point. They will be drawing up a proposal, and then they will be gaming it, you know, to demonstrate what different directions this could go in. How would this impact on the situation? And what would the results be? So but, you know, I think in this case, obviously, the whoever is doing the intel analysis

is quite aware that the White House and the team around the White House is very much interested interested in an aggressive policy. Is it quaint to say, hmm, last time I checked, only Congress can declare war, not Joe Biden. There's been no declaration of war against Russia. There has been no declaration of war against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Why has there been no declaration of war? A, there's no political will for it. B, we've signed treaties saying we can only declare war in the case of an imminent military danger. What imminent military danger do the people of Gaza or the Russian government pose to the United States of America? Yeah, well, that's the point. This is all a fraud. These arguments have no basis, in fact, but you're always going to be able to find in the U.S. government, as complex

and big as it is, there are going to be plenty of people who support these kinds of policies uh policies of global uh dominance by the united states now bear in mind that the foreign policies of both political parties are are basically uh underwritten by the neoconservatives and they're certainly going to do everything and anything to to defend israel and they've always had this thing about russia and so that's what we're seeing play out here these people are are dominant in both parties and how this came about is that they with 9 11 they basically created this false narrative that the united states was threatened everywhere and that And that's being sustained to this day. What does the American foreign policy establishment or what do the neocons want

in Israel? We know they want to use Ukraine as a battering ram because they think they can drive President Putin from office. They're learning slowly, painfully, with a lot of blood and a lot of money spent and gone forever that that's not going to happen. But what do they want in the Middle East? Do the neocons want genocide? I think, in a manner of speaking, they do. They would prefer that the remaining Palestinians in what used to be Palestine will leave of their own will when Israel makes their conditions of life so miserable that they feel they have no options, no alternatives in what was once their own country. I think they would prefer it that way. But if it requires killing them, you know, pick up the Wall Street Journal, read some of the articles about Gaza that are being posted

over the last 10 days. These are people that are quite happy going in there and killing everyone. And that's what they want. There are many Israeli politicians who want bigger Israel, Eretz Israel, which by some definitions would run from the Jordan River all the way over to the Nile River and also into Lebanon.

This is crazy, but this is what's in some of their heads. And they try to justify it with biblical quotes and things like that. But believe me, the Bible never authorized this kind of killing. What's your gut, your feeling for how this will be in six months? Can the Israeli military possibly sustain urban warfare? I mean, their IDF is two-thirds reservists. Those kids that are training for guerrilla warfare were school teachers and lawyers and accountants two weeks ago. They're not special forces or Navy SEALs. Well, I readily accept that they as a modern trained and equipped army have a huge advantage over Hamas and whatever

fighters there are in Gaza. And they will, you know, make progress. I believe the tactics will be to literally bomb and use artillery to totally destroy the ground that they're taking in front of them which will kill lots of civilians and it also kill a lot of soldiers because it creates uh fields of fire for the defenders so it's going to be that kind of thing hanging on for a long time and it's also going to create a major secure security problem for israel in that the West Bank is giving them problems now, and also South Lebanon. They've been attacking their own citizens, in many cases, who are Palestinians and are arresting them for house arrest. And they've also killed, as of yesterday, it was 81 Palestinians on the West Bank, and presumably have killed some Lebanese.

So this is going to expand, and their reservists are going to be active duty. Does Prime Minister Netanyahu have an interest in extending or prolonging the war? He has an interest in milking this for whatever political considerations he can get out of it. Bear in mind, before all this started to happen, Netanyahu was in a lot of trouble with major demonstrations every day against his judicial program. And that will presumably, in his mind, go away as long as he can sustain some kind of threat level coming from the Arabs. And so we'll see how that plays out.

I think that's his card. Phil Giraldi, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. Of course, we'll see you again. All right, my friends, we have our usual busy week coming up for you. Of course. We'll see you again. All right, my friends, we have our usual busy week coming up for you. Colonel McGregor, Scott Ritter, Colonel Schaefer, Alistair Crook, Colonel Kwiatkowski, and our usual friends and colleagues. In the meantime, your subscriptions just keep pouring in, for which, of course, we and I are deeply and profoundly grateful.

We'll hit 220,000 today, and I'm absolutely convinced we'll break a quarter of a million long before Christmas, which, of course, has been our stated goal. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.