Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Is the West Deteriorating?

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Is the West Deteriorating?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 Thursday, October 31st, 2024. Professor Jeffrey Sachs joins us. Professor Sachs, always a pleasure. Great to be with you pleasure great to be faithful no matter where you may be on the planet you're so faithful uh to be here uh professor sachs is the west deteriorating well uh we certainly have no coherent uh policies or leadership or strategies or ideas, if you say we, just because we are Americans and our Western allies in Europe are as confused as we are. Of course, we're also at a moment of

very high uncertainty just before the election. But in general, things are adrift, very confused, and alarmingly so in many ways. How many stories do we need of World War III in our newspapers, calmly put, that everyone's preparing for global war, as if this is a natural state of affairs? It's completely bizarre. Were you impressed with the BRICS meeting in Kazan, Russia last week? Yes, of course, because that was a meeting where the 36 countries that attended represented 57% of the world population. It was a very orderly, congenial, sensible meeting with a declaration that came out of it, which makes clear sense. So there was nothing raucous, crazy, broken about it. It was rather straightforward. What they said, these 36

countries, is that they stand behind the United Nations, the UN Charter, multipolarity, multilateralism. What the underlying meaning is, is they say we want international law. We don't want the U.S. bossing us around or making demands through sanctions or overthrowing governments or starting wars. This is the real point of the BRICS. They don't object to the international rule of law as is sometimes claimed, they object to one country trying to push everybody around. That is the United States. That has been the way for quite a while now. And it's kind of running out of steam because it doesn't work. The U.S. doesn't have the means, the dominance, the capacity to boss the rest of the world around. And the meeting in Kazan, Russia of the 36 countries, nine are the BRICS countries and 27 are partners and many of

them aspirants to join the BRICS group. But they were basically saying we want a normal international rule of law based on the UN Charter and putting aside all the crazy unilateralism, and I would say it's pretty crazy, of the United States. Incidentally, an interesting vote just as is typical of all of this. In the UN General Assembly a couple of days ago, a resolution came up that comes up every year, and that is calling for the United States to drop punishing US sanctions on Cuba, which were introduced 65 years ago, 65 years ago, and they are routinely kept in place. I was in Cuba earlier this year. These sanctions crushed the local economy. what purpose? Well, for no purpose at all, other than that they're there. And they've been there, and they're perfectly illegal. Now, what was the vote? Quite interesting. The vote was unanimity of the world to end these sanctions, aside from two countries. So if I have the vote right, it was 187 said end

the sanctions. Two were against, and then four little countries didn't vote. But the two that were against dropping the sanctions were the United States and Israel. Basically, the rogue nations right now that don't want to have anything to do with the rest of the world, that just want to do whatever they want to do. Now, this wasn't the issue of war and peace in the Middle East. It wasn't the issue of the Ukraine war, was an issue of great importance to one nation, our neighbor Cuba. And the world's saying, stop beating up on this little place against international law. It's been 65 years of this. Stop. And the United States couldn't care less. This is why when you ask, is it crazy? It's really crazy. Did Great Britain vote in favor?

Great Britain must have voted in favor. I don't hold me absolutely to it, but every other country voted for this resolution. All the European countries, except for the ones that didn't vote, there were two that were against this resolution. Back to BRICS. Did you find it expected or unexpected that there was no attack on the dollar, no new reserve currency, and no efforts to bypass the swift banking system, which, of course, the Americans can decide who gets in and who gets out. Well, there is definitely work going on to create alternative payments mechanisms. They were not ready or announced in Kazan. But basically, many countries want to trade with Russia, but they can't use the normal banking system because if banks in third countries, that is not Russia or the United States, but in other places, say, well, we just want to have normal commercial trade. They can't

do it right now if those banks are also part of the SWIFT or U.S.-based banking system, because the U.S. will put on sanctions, secondary sanctions, against those banks, not for anything directly related to the United States, but because these third countries want to have normal relations with Russia, and the United States has decided, no, you can't. And so there needs to be, for this reason alone, and I think there will be, alternative ways for, say, businesses anywhere in Asia that have normal economic relations with Russia to continue to engage in trade. But the Kazan summit was not devoted to unveiling an alternative, but there's lots of discussion of the need for alternatives because all of these countries face the rather grim fact that the United States government behaves, I would say, recklessly and illegally by deciding your money is our money.

Presidential decree, your foreign exchange reserves are now frozen because I, the president, say so. It's not the rule of law. It's not international law by any remote standard. It's completely arbitrary. And to my mind, as an American, completely self-destructive of the US dollar, because what we're watching before our eyes, what I see as an international finance specialist is countries getting out of holding dollars. Because if you have a disagreement with the United States, the U.S. government's likely to come grab your money. Once upon a time, we had the rule of law. We had the idea that property rights, if they were challenged or claims were made, things would be adjudicated. No longer. These are just decrees of the president

under this emergency act, that emergency act. It's really mind boggling. But the consequences for the United States will be very severe because these are kind of last ditch efforts for the U.S. to keep its so-called dominance or hegemony. But there's an obvious way around this, which is don't use the dollar for transactions. Now, this will take a little time to get in place because, again, most of the banks in the world normally have used U.S. dollars. It's been very efficient. It's been a normal way to do things. But believe me, there are alternative mechanisms, new institutions, new special purpose institutions so that countries that fear this kind of unilateralism by the United States will have ways around it. And they're working on it.

It just wasn't announced in Kazan. Transitioning to Ukraine, Professor Sachs, do you have any idea if President Zelensky and the West have a plan B in mind to kick in on November 6th? I don't think so. I don't think a plan gives a lot of dignity to the low level of thinking right now. I think there's no strategy. Look, the Biden administration is basically over. We're going to have, again, a dangerous interregnum, no doubt, between the election and January 20th when a new administration will come into office. I personally doubt that anything decisive would or could be done. I kind of shudder to think of what could happen if in this waning moment of the Biden administration, they tried something decisive. It could be disastrous. This is an extremely dangerous situation situation after all, as we discuss week after week. There are hotheads everywhere, crazy people everywhere that want escalation,

desperate politicians that want their bad bets to be salvaged at our risk or at our disastrous expense. So it's a very dangerous period. As far as you know, is Secretary Zelensky, forgive me. President Zelensky. Right. No, I meant Blinken. Is Secretary Blinken still refusing to communicate with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov after all of this? Well, I've seen, I'm not privy to what's happening day to day, but it's certainly, I'm not aware of any sensible discussions on any front. I have been traveling internationally. I was in the Middle East this past week. I spoke to a lot of very senior people, and there was no glimmer that anything is happening. You

never know, of course. There could be very private discussions, but people who you would think would know something didn't give any hint that anything is in the works. mounting? Is there near universal revulsion or isn't there at the Netanyahu government's genocide in Gaza and in South Lebanon? Well, I think, you know, in the Middle East, Netanyahu is a known figure, despised for what he is, which is he's so irresponsible, so dangerous, so reckless, so unprincipled, and leading the most extreme government imaginable on this planet and in Israel's history, certainly. So there wasn't a nice word, I could say, or an exculpatory word. Of course, everybody was waiting for next Tuesday. Everybody is waiting to see what the U.S. does. But I think that there is a different approach.

There is a very clear judgment about what should be done. So I spoke with a lot of leaders in the region, and everybody understands there needs to be peace, two states, there needs to be a state of Palestine, there needs to be security for Israel. It's just those out to destroy Israel. They're very surprised because the leadership in the Middle East has been saying, actually, since 2002, in what's called the Arab Peace Initiative, which has been reiterated every year since 2002, but specifically in recent months has been repeated by leaders across the region. The region is saying two states living side by side, insecurity, end the states of belligerency, normalize relations, but that there has to be a Palestinian state. There can't be Israel making ethnic cleansing, massacring people,

creating widening wars. Israel has to live within its bounds. And one of the things that's happened in the last three months that's very notable, and again, unfortunately not understood or discussed by the New York Times or the Washington Post or, you know, the mainstream papers that just repeat the official, deliberately confused narrative, is the International Court of Justice made a ruling in July very clear. And it said Israel's boundaries are those before Israel captured territory in the 1967 war. So the boundaries are the 4th of June, 1967. And as Israel has known for decades, its continued occupation of the West Bank, of Gaza, of the Golan Heights, which it captured in the Six-Day War, is illegal under international law. This has been plain for decades, but the International Court of Justice said this is illegal, the settlements are illegal, and Israel

has to withdraw from these occupied territories where Israel rules with cruelty and impunity. And then the UN General Assembly voted by an overwhelming margin again, just like the vote I described with Cuba, an overwhelming majority said that Israel and its backers need to abide by international law, that of the International Court of Justice. Again, the United States and Israel almost alone oppose that UN General Assembly resolution. So when you travel in the Middle East and speak with foreign ministers and other leaders, they are, of course, terribly frustrated, but also really terribly anguished by the fact that the way to peace is clearly on the table. In fact, not only on the table, it's been voted by the United Nations. It's been adjudicated by the International Court of Justice. It has been supported by the Arab countries themselves.

And by the way, not just the Arab countries, but by what's called the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, which is 57 majority Muslim countries. That includes Iran, for example, which is called the great barrier to peace. But Iran has signed on to the two-state solution repeatedly. We don't want to hear that. Why? Because Netanyahu doesn't want to hear that. Because his whole idea, the disastrous idea, is to block a Palestinian state at all costs. Not because it would threaten Israel, but because Israel wants to rule everything and everybody that it is dominated. It's craziness. But that's the situation. And by the way, what I think all of us are coming to appreciate as we look at this horror right now of what Israel is doing, the cost not only to Israel and to the Middle East, and of course, especially to the Palestinians is profound, but Netanyahu has done more damage to the United States than just about

any person on this planet. And he's done it repeatedly because his idea has been engage the U.S. military in Israel's wars so that Israel doesn't have to face up to the basic fact that there should be a state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel. So Netanyahu, as we've come to understand better and better looking back at it, was the chief promoter of the disastrous war in Iraq. And we paid the price, we Americans, trillions of dollars. And he still gets away with it because that's the Israel lobby. It's enough. So this is the main reflection that I found in the Middle East in the past week, but it's what I've been seeing at the UN and through travels all over the Middle East in the past week, but it's what I've been seeing at the UN and through travels all over the Middle East for years, but especially in recent months, that the way to peace

is absolutely clear. There's not even a debate about it, an argument about it in almost all the world. It's just hidden from view from Americans who don't really understand the full price that we're paying to back Netanyahu's madness and cruelty. And because we're not told that the Arab nations have laid out a perfectly sensible path to peace with security for Israel and based on international law. And it's just waiting for the United States to stop vetoing it. I stepped aside for just a second because of the dog. Okay. I know you're traveling, so you might not have seen this, and I play it for you for its humor aspect, even though I expect it will raise your blood pressure a little bit. This is a madman addressing 25,000 people

who apparently agree with him at Madison Square Garden last Sunday. Chris, cut number four. They are our best friend. I worked for Ronald Reagan for eight years. Ronald Reagan said, we have to be there for Israel always because they are always there for us. Hamas is not there for us. Iran is not there for us. They want to kill us. And the Palestinians are taught to kill us at two years old. They won't let a Palestinian in Jordan. They won't let a Palestinian in Egypt.

And Harris wants to bring them to you. They may have good people. I'm sorry I don't take a risk with people that are taught to kill Americans at two. I'm on the side of Israel. You're on the side of Israel. Donald Trump's on the side of Israel. And they're on the side of Israel Donald Trump's on the side of Israel And they're on the side of the terrorists

How do you even respond to that man? No, it's so sad By the way, just to be clear You'd hear it in both parties This is the American political class Completely bought Paid for by the Israel lobby, completely neglecting the fact that what Israel has done has so profoundly undermined American foreign policy, U.S. interests, the U.S. budget. You just can't add it up. Netanyahu's plan laid out very clearly already in 1996 in his book on fighting terrorism,

launched in 1998 by the neocons that are the Israel lobby, argued by Netanyahu in 2002, and testimony everyone can find online, is that the United States needs to fight wars for Israel so that Israel never has to make a compromise with the people that it dominates and kills and rules with impunity. So that's the story. And we have had nonstop wars that Netanyahu spelled out and planned against Iraq, of course, the disaster. Against Syria, that was on his list. Against Libya, that was on his list. Netanyahu is basically, it's of course not just him, it's the Israel lobby backing this kind of madness, has cost the American people trillions of dollars of direct outlays for these useless wars, which were wars fought for Israel's sake, not for American security's sake. They were fought on completely

fictitious grounds, as we all know. They had to make up stories because the real story was that the Israel lobby was saying, go to war with Iraq. Why? Because Israel wanted us to go to war with Iraq. We didn't have to go to war with Iraq, but Israel wanted us to go to war with Iraq. We went to war with Syria. Most people don't even realize that exactly because, of course, that was a secret presidential finding tasking the CIA to overthrow the Syrian government. That was Obama, by the way. This is both parties. This is not one party or another.

And so, yeah, Giuliani can stand there and he can rant and rave and say whatever he wants. But the American people should understand how costly this is. The Israel lobby is not rationally defending Israel's security. propounding an extremist position that has been guaranteed to lead to endless wars, and fine for Israel to say it, but why are we the ones fighting these endless wars? Why are we spending trillions of dollars? Why are we isolated completely in the global community right now? Why are we standing by as Israel creates more and more havoc now in Lebanon, destroying that country after destroying Gaza and trying to do everything to provoke us to go to war with Iran, which could escalate to something absolutely horrific.

Why do we just stand there and accept this? Well, part of the reason is people like Giuliani, who without any shame or any honesty or any sense of responsibility are on the take and have been. That's our political class. And the Israel lobby pours in, they pour in hundreds of millions of dollars and they get out tens of trillions. They get out tens of billions of dollars, I should say, that over time add up to trillions of dollars. It's quite a mess that we've allowed ourselves to be a party to.

Thank you for your gifted and articulate analysis of all of this. Much appreciated, Jeff. I know it's the middle of the night where you are, but thank you so much for coming. Great to be with you. All my best to Mrs. Sachs. Safe travels. I hope we can see you again. See you next week. We'll know some interesting things next week. Well, it'll be after Wednesday. Hopefully we do know.

We'll know something. Thank you, Jeff. Take care. Bye. Coming up tomorrow, Friday, at the end of the week and the end of the day, the Intelligence Community Roundtable, four o'clock tomorrow afternoon, Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.