Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Ukraine, Israel, and Diplomatic Failures

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Ukraine, Israel, and Diplomatic FailuresSee 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 17th, 2024. Professor Jeffrey Sachs is with us on Israel, Ukraine, and the failure of democracy. Excuse me, the failure of diplomacy. But first this. A divisive presidential election is upon us, and the winner is gold. Let me tell you what I mean. Since 2016, our national debt has grown a staggering 70% and gold has increased by 60%.

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Protect your savings and retirement before it's too late. 800-511-4620, learjudgenap.com. Remember, hope is not a strategy, but gold is. Professor Sachs, good day to you. A lot to discuss, and thank you very much for your time. Does the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu respect the United Nations? Are you kidding? It completely disdains the United Nations, and we have one insulting occasion after the next by Israeli ambassadors to the United Nations, and typically by Netanyahu's own appearances when they occur at the General Assembly. No, the United Nations is almost united against Israel's extremism.

Almost the entire world community says there needs to be a state of Palestine as a member of the United Nations. 140 member states of the UN have already recognized Palestine as a state. And the United Nations, both in the General Assembly and in the Security Council, make clear that what Israel is doing is illegal. It's war crimes. It's absolutely a threat to the world peace. So in this sense, there's no doubt that the government of Netanyahu utterly neglects or just rejects anything coming from the UN, but the feeling's mutual. The world is saying Israel is absolutely on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of justice. Now, there's one country in the UN that defends Israel, and that's the United States. The US uses its veto to block peace in the region, because were it not for the U.S. veto, Palestine would be a member state of the U.N. There would be two

states and there would be a way to implement the two-state solution, not to the liking necessarily of either side, but to the objective of peace for both sides. And this is what the U.N. should be doing. It has the authority to do it, but the United States has stopped it. So the U. And this is what the UN should be doing. It has the authority to do it, but the United States has stopped it. So the US is really the main barrier to peace. Putting aside Israel's extremism, where Israel has no intention of making peace with the Palestinians, the United States is just on the side of Israel's extremism. So when Prime Minister Netanyahu addresses the General Assembly next week, he's not going to get 58 standing ovations as he did when he addressed the joint session of

the U.S. Congress? No, and he's not going to look for that. He will almost surely insult his fellow world leaders. He will cast dispersions on them, and his audience will be two places. One is the home political audience in Israel. He'll show them how tough he is against worldwide opposition to Israel, so-called. And in Washington, those will be his two audiences, but not in the chamber of the General Assembly. Over the weekend, he appointed a retired IDF colonel as the governor of Gaza and made it clear that his long-term, not publicly, but by doing this, I would argue, intention is to evacuate Gaza of Palestinians. He can't defeat Hamas. How is he going to evacuate Gaza of Palestinians? And by what conceivable legal authority can he appoint a retired Israeli official as the governor of Gaza? Well, as legal authority, I have no clear idea. It's legal authority under some Israeli interpretation essence of all that is happening, is that this government rejects

a state of Palestine, and it supports some combination of an apartheid state, meaning Israel rules the Palestinian people, millions of them, or ethnic cleansing. It chases them out, which it tried to do. Egypt and others say, no, you're not going to ethnically cleanse with our approval, or genocide, which is it kills people. And this is not hidden. Maybe it's spoken more in Hebrew than it is in English, but it's not hidden. This is the view of this government. That's why all of the useless talk by the U.S. government about ceasefires and temporary this and hostage release that is deliberately neglecting the central point of this entire crisis, which is that Israel has only this violence. There is no possibility of a one week or one month ceasefire in which the hostages are released and then Israel goes back to its insistence on apartheid rule. It's not going to happen. And the United States hides this most obvious fact as it hides many other obvious facts.

The point is there is absolutely no strategy for peace. And when there's no strategy for peace, it means that the strategy is of continuing mass killing and risks of escalation. And that's the continuing reality in the Middle East and in Ukraine, because I would say the lies that we tell about Ukraine are the same. We don't talk about the political realities. We only talk about very short-term tactical issues, and then lo and behold, those don't solve anything. Do you think that the countries participating in the negotiations, the negotiations for a ceasefire, the ones that Amos Hochstein is involved with, the Israeli-born IDF member and now an American citizen State Department representative, the ones that Bill Burns is involved in, the Egyptians are involved, the Qataris are involved.

Do you think they all recognize that there will never be a ceasefire because Netanyahu will never agree to any ceasefire terms, no matter how rational they may be? I think they all play games at the cost of the lives of tens of thousands of people. The main point in Israel and Palestine and in Ukraine is that as our government officials tell lies every day, thousands and thousands of people die, get wounded, the war goes on, the risks of escalation increase. But the point is, they're not counting the dead. The United States doesn't care. I mean, not the US, of course. I mean, these officials don't care about the deaths of the Palestinian people. That's not some aspersion of mine. That is an observation of their behavior day to day.

Similarly, perhaps a little more surprisingly, the officials do not care about the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian deaths to this point and to the 1,000 to 2,000 dead or seriously wounded every single day on the Ukrainian side. I think this is what it means to be a tough, hard American strategist, you don't count the dead of other people. As long as it's not Americans showing up in American body bags, and as long as you can fake the fact that we face ever graver dangers of escalation to nuclear war, which we do, as long as you can fake those two things, that it's not American deaths, and don't worry about it, we're safe, go about your business, have a good time, don't look too closely here, then these wars are perpetual wars. That's the American way. To end a war, you need a political

strategy. These wars are not going to end by the military defeat of Russia, nor are they going to end by the military defeat of even the Palestinian people, because they have backers, serious backers. They have backers who say, no, we're not going to accept ethnic cleansing or genocide or apartheid rule. And as long as that backing occurs, then there won't be a military end to this. There can only be a political end. But the whole gambit of the United States is to deny politics. Just call the other side evil, whether it's Putin or Hamas. Don't discuss politics. Don't discuss the fact that there are legitimate interests on the other side.

And then the war continues endlessly. That's the game of this administration. It's also the incredible cruelty of the American strategy, and it's also the failure of this administration. Last week, General Carrillo, who is the commander of CENTCOM, American troops in Europe, Africa, and Asia, visited Prime Minister Netanyahu twice in one week. Do you think he was there to say, we have your back no matter what you do? Or do you think he was there to say, don't start a war in Lebanon because we're not going in with you? I don't know what they say to each other. They certainly don't tell us.

It is, by the way, would just like to remind people as we enter the final weeks of an election, we're not told the truth about anything of foreign policy. Nothing is explained. The American people are not only bystanders, they're just completely kept hidden from view. Maybe the general was there to talk about the Houthi missile that was fired at Israel and its implications, or the assessment of the continuing risks of escalation or Israel's intentions, or at least Netanyahu's intentions in Lebanon. Whatever they say, though, publicly is unambiguous. We fully support Israel. This is repeated by candidate Kamala Harris and by Donald Trump every day,

each one arguing who can be most ardently pro-Israel, nobody talking about the real politics of this at all. So I have to confess, I have no idea what they talked about, and they certainly didn't share it with me. I wish that they had. I wish that you had been there, maybe in a scene or day that were happening. Transitioning to Ukraine, last week, Primeiguous impression that the Prime Minister and the President would announce their permission for the Ukrainians to use British and American long-range missiles to attack deep into Russia. In response to the impression that was given by Secretary Blinken, President Putin of Russia said this, cut number five. It is not about allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about making a decision about whether NATO countries are directly involved in the military conflict or not. If the decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct

participation of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine. This is their direct participation. And this, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict. This will mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries are fighting Russia. And if this is so, bearing in mind the change in the very essence of this conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be created for us. And then no announcement was made about the permission to use long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia. In fact, Joe Biden was pretty upset at Vladimir Putin's statement. Here he is telling a reporter,

stop asking me questions. Here he's sitting down with Prime Minister Starmer and their staff. We're right across the table from each other. Reporters are shouting questions about this topic, and he doesn't want to answer. Cut number eight. All right, till I speak, okay?

That's what I say. Good idea? What do you say to Vladimir Putin's threat of war, sir? It's a serious threat. All right, you I speak, okay? That's what I say. Good idea? What do you say to Vladimir Putin's threat of war, sir? All right, all right. You got to be quiet. I'm going to make a statement, okay? All right, anyway, Mr. Prime Minister, welcome. Welcome back to the White House. I've often said there's no issue of global consequence where the United States and Great Britain can't work together and haven't worked together. And we're going to discuss some of these things right now. First, Ukraine.

What's your take on all of this? The statement, the intimations by Secretary Blinken, the very serious and clear statement by President Putin, probably a reaction on the part of the Defense Department, not made public to what President Putin said, and then Joe Biden's irritation that this was being even asked of him in public. First, let me start with the last point. Whether President Biden can or can't speak coherently to the American people, we don't really know. But we do know that he does not speak to the American people. What we see when we see President Biden these days is shouting to a reporter or waving off a reporter as he walks to the presidential helicopter or plane. We don't hear anything from President Biden of substance. This is quite alarming because we

are in an extremely dangerous situation. We don't really know who is making decisions. One gets a sense that President Biden is not making decisions and that there's quite a bit of disarray in policy making. So that indeed, Secretary Blinken made a very consequential statement while in Kyiv, and then it was contradicted a few days later. Now, what the substance of this issue is, is the ongoing escalation of the war in Ukraine. Russia is winning the war. Russia will win this war because Ukraine is literally without the troops to defend its territory right now. Even the Washington Post ran a story that Ukraine is bleeding out. This is what happens when a smaller country fights a very powerful larger country. This was clear for years. This is not a surprise. This is clear. Ukraine is losing. And so what is happening is that desperate politicians or deep state strategists, and especially the UK, which is

actually even more warmongering than the United States. That's a whole discussion, but Britain is in its war posture disgusting because it basically has an imperial mindset without any capacity right now of empire, thank goodness, but it still wants as much escalation as possible. So it's an extremely irresponsible country in its policy advising, because basically telling the United States to do certain things. Now, what it is calling for is using its intermediate range missiles, these storm shadow missiles to strike into the Russian heartland. But to do so requires the active engagement of US personnel. And what President Putin is saying very clearly, and this is not for the first time, this point has been made repeatedly. If the US is not only funding and

giving weapons, but actually is directly participating in attacks on Russia, that is a U.S. attack on Russia. And this is a NATO attack on Russia. Russia would then be not in a battle with Ukraine, but in a direct war with NATO, in which case the Russians have made clear our nuclear posture and our overall approach to this war would change, and change in an extremely dangerous way. And the point is not a bluff or bluster. The point is Russia is not going to lose this war. And if it ever started to lose this war on conventional terms, that is using conventional weapons, God help us, because the likelihood of Russia using tactical or strategic nuclear weapons would increase markedly. And this is so clear, and it has been clear from the start, it was clear to President Obama in 2014 that Russia has what he then termed escalatory dominance.

It cares about this war. It is not going to let the United States set up its bases and missile systems on its border with Ukraine, and it will escalate as necessary. That's what Putin is saying again. Don't take the next step. The British cannot use their storm shadow missiles without U.S. personnel. So this is all a game of getting the U.S. even more deeply and directly involved. No doubt it's already directly involved, but getting it even more directly involved. And then we have the extremely unhelpful words of the CIA director,

William Burns, who knows better. William Burns in 2008 explained why this issue of NATO enlargement to Ukraine is so dangerous and neuralgic to the Russian political class. But then he was ambassador to Russia reporting back to Washington. Now he's CIA director. And he told us last week, don't worry about the nuclear saber rattling. Well, how dare he say that? How dare he say that? How does he know when the threshold is crossed? And that's the great danger of this. We have Western officials who are as stupid as can be, who say, well, he hasn't done it yet. We keep going on and on, and it's just a bluff. Yes, it's a bluff until it's not a bluff. And this is what is so unbelievably phony and dangerous about this entire war. This is a war over political reasons are NATO enlargement that directly threatens Russia and really does threaten Russia. We have U.S. military bases on Russia's border, U.S. missile systems on Russia's border, U.S. CIA operations based in all over Ukraine, targeted at Russia and so forth. Russia

said, no, perfectly plausible. It should be taken as a measure for Ukraine to be secure, but neutral. But that's what the United States, deep state, can't accept. That idea of a neutral, safe Ukraine in which the United States isn't pushing up against Russia's borders. And what Burns is so inconsistent about is that not only did he tell us already back in 2008, 16 years ago, why this was so dangerous, so wrongheaded, but he even acknowledged that in 2022, he took seriously the Russian threat of strategic nuclear weapons. And now he's saying, don't worry. Well, my advice everywhere is worry, especially worry about this absolutely misguided foreign policy of ours, in which the American people are not told the truth,

have no say, and are just told, go about your business. Don't look this way when our lives are at risk. You wonder why intelligence making its way to the White House is spun politically when you have somebody like Bill Burns through whom it's being filtered. But here's a statement even more irresponsible than CIA Director Burns. The only saving grace is that Boris Johnson is no longer in office. Cut number seven. As for the role the Ukrainians could themselves play in stability and security in the Euro-Atlantic area? It's obvious. Thanks to the heroism of the Ukrainian armed forces,

they've been fighting for more than two years, almost three years. They are the most accomplished armed forces in the whole continent and it's easy to see how they could play a very very important role in peace and stability on the European continent one of the arguments I think we should make to our American friends is if they want to

take back some US troops from the European theatre and save a few billion, a lot of billion, then I'm sure the Ukrainians, having defeated the Russians, and there's nobody more effective at defeating the Russians than the Ukrainians, I'm sure the Ukrainians would be only too happy to backfill in Europe. Anyway, those are some of the things, some of the ways in which I think Ukraine can be a force for stability. There's a lot to unpack there. To make matters worse,

right before he said that, he predicted that Ukraine would soon join the EU and, of course, join NATO. He's truly, truly a despicable man in many ways, but utterly despicable. Granger, who went to Kiev in April 2022 to stop the peace agreement that was about to be signed between Ukraine and Russia. There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian dead since then, with nothing accomplished. When he talks about Ukrainian troops backfilling troops in Europe, it's cemeteries that Ukraine is filling right now all over Ukraine, cemeteries spreading of young people who have died needlessly because of that idiot Boris Johnson and his counterparts in the United States, cynically praising the heroism of the Ukrainian people as they are sent to their needless deaths.

That's what this is. And Johnson said in a statement a few months ago, what is this war about? We must defeat Russia to protect Western hegemony. It could not be more clear. Not to protect Ukraine, not to make a safe world, not to give us security, but to protect Western hegemony. No, thank you. We don't need Western hegemony. We need safety in our lives. We need to avoid nuclear war. We need peace. We need politics that is honest and transparent and responsible and ethical. Unfortunately, Johnson gives us none of those. You know, I didn't notice this when watching the clip, but Chris, we stole, we cheated. That's what we teach at the CIA, he told the students proudly.

We lied, we cheated, we stole. My God. My God. CIA Director and Secretary of State and sitting next to Boris Johnson and determining possibly our survival. Jeff, I know you have, Professor Sachs, I know you have a busy week. It's the UN is in town. Thank you very much for your time.

I want you to keep count of how many diplomats you engage with, and you can chat about that if you wish when you join us next week. All the best, Professor. See you next week. Of course. And coming up later today at two o'clock, Matt Ho at three o'clock, Karen Kwiatkowski, Justin Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.