Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern (fmr CIA) - More Gazan genocide before any ceasefire.

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

Ray McGovern (fmr CIA) - More Gazan genocide before any ceasefire. 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, November 13th, 2023. Ray McGovern is here and will be with us in a minute on the war crimes of the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza. But first this. Judge Napolitano here. The world is falling apart and the government wants to spend money to try and save it. The Israelis are defending themselves from the greatest onslaught in their history. Ukraine is collapsing.

We are trying to fund both on borrowed money and borrowed time. The Federal Reserve keeps raising interest rates so everything you own is worth less and everything you earn can buy less. What can you do about it? You can buy gold and silver, the most stable commodities on the planet in the past 3,000 years. The government can't print more of it and can't interfere with it. Where should you buy your gold and silver? Do what I did and go to Lear Capital.

Call 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com. You'll have a very interesting conversation with a very knowledgeable person. No heavy pressure. And if you want to diversify what's in your IRA from stocks and mutual funds, consider physical gold and silver. Ask about a gold-backed IRA. You can take this information and discuss it with your spouse. And when you call, find out if you can qualify for up to $15,000 in bonus gold or silver. Call today, 800-511-4620, learjudgenap.com. When you talk to them, tell them the judge sent you. Ray, welcome here, my dear friend. Before we get to the latest in Gaza and the near universal outside of Israel recognition of what's happening there is a series of profound war crimes.

There was some news over the weekend, apparently involving the Nord Stream pipeline. I mean, this is almost ridiculous, but apparently the CIA leaked to their favorite mouthpiece, the Washington Post, the idea that an imprisoned Ukrainian colonel, a colonel in the Ukrainian army, imprisoned because of some espionage deal, he was trying to seduce a Russian to defect and it went to bad, claims that he orchestrated and he organized the assault on the Nord Stream pipeline. Now, this is profoundly at odds with what our mutual friend, the world-renowned Cy Hirsch has written. So my question is, where did this come from? And why are they leaking this nonsense now?

Well, Judge, the involvement, in quotes, of the Ukrainians in the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines, it goes back several months now. And at the time, we identified that as sort of a contingency plan for when we're going to get rid of Zelensky. You're blaming it on the Ukrainians. What could be worse than what the Ukrainians did? We know they didn't do it. We know Tsai is right, at least I do. So now we have come all the way all the way there to say, well, now we have the guy that planned that is the colonel.

And who is he working for? Zaluzny. Uh oh. Now, most of us thought at the end of last week that Zaluzny was the more respectable or the more sensible person that they might choose him, that they, the U.S. puppeteers, might choose Zaluzny over Zelensky. Zaluzny is the general who's in charge of the military. Correct. The one who told The Economist magazine 10 days ago that the war is at a stalemate, which infuriated Zelensky, the one whose chief of staff was assassinated when he opened up what he thought was a birthday present and it was a hand grenade.

Yeah. So the intrigue is really worth a TV series. But the reality is that there's a battle royale, not only in Kiev, but more important, in Washington. Who do they support? And what I see in this Saturday incredible story about this lieutenant colonel doing all this stuff for Zelushny is an attempt by the neocons to keep Zelensky sure of their support and give Zoloshin those illusions that he's their pick. I don't know how it's going to come out, but it's really full of intrigue. So are the charges against this colonel trumped up? I mean, they almost sound ridiculous. Intel tries to seduce defections all the time, supposedly tried to seduce or induce, I guess is a better word, a Russian pilot to defect. And as a result, some people died. Yeah, that's a credible claim, whether it has any water to it or not.

There he is. It's not a jail cell. That's a holding cell in a Ukraine courtroom. Unlike in America, where the defendant stands in front of the judge, sometimes shackled, but right directly in front of the judge. In Eastern European countries, the defendant is in a glass cage. There's the colonel. Yeah, those are the photos that went around over the weekend. Now, I don't believe a fool in wit. We know who did the Nord Stream pipeline explosions. So this all has to do, in my view, with how the CIA and its mouthpiece, the Washington Post, is playing this game depending on which faction in Washington they're listening to. We want to pick the solution? Well, probably not. We want to stay with Zelensky, at least for the nonce. That's how I read it. But it's getting pretty dangerous there because those

people are at each other's throats and who knows what's going to happen. They have the Nazis there also to contend with. The war is lost. What are they going to do? How long has the CIA been using the Washington Post? This is almost a joke. It almost sounds like a joke. How long has the CIA been using the Washington Post as its mouthpiece? Well, how long has the CIA been around? Here's a little instance here. Exactly one month after John Kennedy was assassinated, Harry Truman wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post.

And he said, this is not what CIA was created for. They should stick to intelligence analysis. This is not what I Missouri. It appeared in the Washington Post on December 22nd, 1963. Guess what? Washington Post used to have three editions. It appeared in the first edition. It didn't appear in a second edition. It didn't appear anywhere else. No other major outlet picked it up except the independence observer out there. And so nobody knows that Truman himself was convinced. Who did Kennedy? And he said, look, the worst thing is when you distort intelligence, namely Cuba, to mislead the president. He was thinking about those CIA nicks who said, oh, Fidel Castro will be overthrown as soon as we land on the beach. That was hogwash. They just

wanted to go in and get Castro. And they thought they could hoodwink John Kennedy into approving the act of participation of U.S. armed forces, that he wouldn't commit U.S. armed forces. Alan Dulles, when he died, on his desk was a coffee-stained piece of paper saying, when push comes to shove and our troops become bogged down in the Bay of Pigs, John Kennedy will have no option other than to give U.S. troops to this enterprise lest it fail. That's documented. We have that solid. Here's Truman worrying about this, warning in an op-ed in the Washington Post. I guess the editors didn't know that it was going to be printed in that early edition. It was removed and forgotten until Truman and his papers became available.

We know an awful lot now from Truman's own library how he felt about how John Kennedy was killed almost precisely 50 years ago. What do we know about the Israeli assault on this major hospital in Gaza and the validity or soundness of the claim that below the hospital is the Hamas command center. Well, we have the Israelis blaming Hamas for trying to blacken them by putting their facilities under hospitals. OK, so that's how the Israelis are saying now. Jake Sullivan, our national security advisor, has warned the Israelis. Look, you know, if you do this, you ought to make sure that, you know, you respect the civilians. But what does he add? He says, we don't want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent people are caught in a crossfire, and this is a quote, Jake Sullivan agrees that Hamas using hospitals and other civilian facilities as human shields is beyond the pale. So here's Sullivan agreeing

with the Israeli line that there are using, that is, Hamas is using civilians as human shields. And the way they do that apparently is also by building tunnels on the hospitals. Well, the hopeful sign here is that the New York Times changes title overnight. The major article, the lead article in today's Times. It used to be, um, the Red Army forces struggling in a hospital that they say covered a Hamas complex. Oh, there it is, good, got it there? Now that's the new one, that's the hard copy. Yeah, so they're coming around here, Not only that lead item there, but look to the left, four columns full of not the bloodiest, not the, you know, it looks like a pretty decent hospital

there. They could have chosen worse, but in that article, there is worse, at least the online said. So what I'm saying here is that no matter what Jake Sullivan says or whatever the Israelis say about Hamas is really trying to give them a bad name because they're putting civilians in the way. OK, Jake Sullivan also admits that, you know, we tell the Israelis these things, but, you know, Israelis have their own decisions and we support them. We just ask them, please be nice about it. Here's Sullivan yesterday talking about firefights in hospitals. The United States does not want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent people,

patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire. And we've had active consultations with the Israeli Defense Forces on this. In fact, just yesterday, the Israeli Defense Forces themselves said that they, on the record publicly, said that they are looking for ways to be able to ensure the safety and security of individual patients in those hospitals, while they also try to figure out a way to deal with the fact that Hamas is operating in a way that's outside the bounds of

any civilized concept of how you would think about, you know, using a hospital, using human shields. So it's an active conversation. But the bottom line is we don't want to see firefights in hospitals. It's operating outside the bounds of any civilized concept, but the IDF, which attacks hospitals and slaughters women, children, and civilians is not. Is that a fair takeaway from what he was saying? Well, it is, Judge. And you know, the Times also, again, to its credit, I suppose you should say, quotes Nicholas Kristof, who has had two op-eds now. And the question he asks is, how many dead Palestinian children are enough? Oh, well, 5,000 now, maybe.

During the sabotage or the sanctions against Iraq in the 90s, 500,000 Iraqi children. None of them look like us, neither do the Palestinians. So 5,000 drop in a bucket. Are we going to go up to 50,000, 500,000? I don't think so, although there are that many children in Gaza. Chris, play the Sullivan clip on no displacement and no occupation. Secretary Blinken has been clear that it's the West Bank and Gaza that need to be under unified control and the Palestinian Authority likely to govern that. It doesn't sound like the Netanyahu

government is on the same page as the Biden administration, because the prime minister said something very different just yesterday. Well, from our perspective, the way forward, the basic principles of the way forward are straightforward. And this is something that Secretary Blinken laid out publicly this past week. No reoccupation of Gaza. No forcible displacement of the Palestinian people. Gaza can never be used as a base for terrorism in the future, and Gaza's territory should not be reduced. Secretary Blinken also said that ultimately, we do want to see the reconnection, the reunification of control between the West

Bank and Gaza under Palestinian leadership. The Palestinian Authority is the current leadership on the West Bank. But ultimately, it's going to be up to the Palestinian people to decide their future, who governs them. There haven't been elections held in ages. Well, that's right, Margaret. There haven't been elections held since the early 2000s. But post-October 7th, we can't go back to the way things were on October 6th. The Biden administration is speaking out of both sides of its mouth, or they have no ability to control the Israelis, notwithstanding the billions we give the government.

No displacement. They've displaced a million 700,000 people already. No occupation. Prime Minister Netanyahu says they're going to occupy this for, and he couldn't put a date on it, they're going to be in charge of security. They're going to run Gaza. Permit the Palestinian Authority and the people in Gaza to have free elections. Maybe he'll never allow it. Who does Sullivan think will believe what he's saying? Well, he's playing to many Americans, particularly those in Congress who don't have this right. He's also playing to the viewers of Face the Nation, of course. But you know, it's transparently pretty much disgraceful what he's doing. He's defending genocide. And more importantly, he's identifying

the United States of America with a country doing genocide. Why does he say we? We, we, the Israeli government and Washington, we are going to do this. We have really nice phrases here. We want the way forward to be straightforward. Oh, isn't that nice? We don't want to see all the bloodshed. Well, if he doesn't want to see all this bloodshed, stop the arms trade, stop the arms giving to Israel. It's illegal on the face of it because Israel is in possession of a nuclear weapon. We can't acknowledge that officially because it's against the law to give Israel weaponry if they are in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and they are. So all this fiction about we can't acknowledge Israeli possession of nuclear weapons is a fiction.

And so we identify ourselves so closely with Israel. And, you know, it was Blinken who said initially, look, we're focused now. We're focused on making sure that Israel wins militarily. I mean, how more damning can that be? And again, you know, I ask Nick Kristof's question, how many more dead Palestinian children do there have to be before this stops? he can't put two sentences together. That's another issue. But what is the administration's goal? Is it the total eradication of Hamas? Hamas is an idea. The Israelis can't eradicate an idea. Is it the occupation of Gaza? Well, under the UN Charter, they already do occupy Gaza, and their job as the occupier is to maintain the safety and security of the people whose land they occupy, not to slaughter them. That's correct. And under international law,

there is no right to defend themselves in Gaza. Gaza is occupied territory. It's just like, it bears resemblance to the French government during World War II when the Nazis invaded. Are you going to say that the resistance didn't have any rights to defend themselves at all? What the rights were, or the occupying country was supposed to prevent what was going on in France. The French resistance had every right to fight, just as the people who have been oppressed in Palestine have every right. So there are international law implications here.

It's just a pretty big disgrace what's going on. The little glimmers of hope are that the New York Times now are putting those kinds of photos and that kind of article on the top of their front page. It's going to take a while to persuade the Israelis. Maybe it will never be able to persuade the Israelis. And then, you know, how many more children have to die? Well, you know, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Turks, the Iranians, the Arabs, they're going to decide that. So far, they've been very perspicacious. They don't want a war with the U.S., but they have weapons short of war that they can make things very, very uncomfortable for Europe in the first instance and for us finally. One cannot help but come to the conclusion that whatever happened on October 7th, and the Israelis just reduced by 200 the original claim of people that were killed, still none of them should have been killed, but the Israeli government

reduced the claim from around 1,400 to around 1,200. But my argument is one cannot help but come to the conclusion that whatever happened on October 7th is being used as a pretext for genocide because they don't seem to be looking to kill Hamas. They haven't killed Hamas fighters. They've killed 10,000 civilians. More Israeli soldiers have died than Hamas fighters have died, but those numbers are dwarfed by the 10,000 Hamas civilians who have died. How can this possibly be justified? Before you answer, Chris, Bibi Netanyahu yesterday on Meet the Press on whether or not he's a war criminal. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said just this morning that while Hamas has committed war crimes, the collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians amounts also to a war crime.

Can you definitively say right now that Israel is not breaking international law? Yes, I can say that what the commissioner said is hogwash. I was hoping that he'd say more than that, but that's what he said. He's not a stupid person. He knows his behavior is indefensible. He also knows that when the war is over, he's out of a job and maybe out of his freedom. What he knows, which is most important, is that Joe Biden, Tony Blinken, Jacob Sullivan, Victoria Nuland are committed Zionists. That's number one. Number two, he knows that they live in a world where they think the U.S. is still

exceptional and indispensable and can work its will in the rest of the world, specifically the Middle East. That's gone. That's over, okay? Now, they really don't seem to have that through their head because Biden and the others keep saying we're going to do this, but they could stop the damn thing right now if they just said, look, we're going to implement U.S. national law, which prohibits us giving any more arms aid to a country that has violated the non-proliferation treaty and has built a nuclear weapon. Now, Netanyahu looks at the

nuclear weapon that they have, and they have between 90 and 200, depending on who you believe, as their ace in the hole. It's not. Hezbollah has so many missiles, so does Iran. They're so sophisticated that they have now a deterrent. Israel is deterred. The only way it can persist is if people like Jacob Sullivan say, well, you know, we asked them to be nice. We asked them not to kill all those people in the hospitals. And we're hoping, but you know what? But they have a right to defend themselves. As international scholars like Richard Falk say, they have no right to defend themselves in occupied territories where

they're supposed to be protecting the people, not exploiting them, not killing them. The Richard Falk, whom you quote, taught me when I was an undergraduate at Princeton. He's been around the block many times. He's also one of the most brilliant and courageous understanders and explainers of international law on the planet. And we plan to invite him on the program along with you and Larry Johnson. Ray McGovern, no matter what we talk about, your insight and your drama are fabulous. Thank you very much for joining us. Most welcome.

Okay. Larry Johnson at 11 o'clock this morning at three this afternoon, Professor Tom DiLorenzo, who's the new president of the Mises Institute on the death of American exceptionalism. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. MUSIC I'm