Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern : Russia/China/Ukraine

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

Ray McGovern : Russia/China/UkraineSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Protect your savings. 800-511-4620. Learjudgenap.com. Tell them the judge sent you. Ray, welcome here, my dear friend. Thanks for all your time. Of course, I do want to start with breaking news, the first of which is an announcement by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court that he will ask the court itself to authorize the filing of an indictment and the issuing of arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Gallant, and three leaders of Hamas, one of whom, according to Alistair Crook, is a friend of Alistair's and is the chief negotiator for Hamas. But let's start with

Netanyahu and Gallant. What will be the international impact if the court does accept these indictments and issue these arrest warrants? Well, Putin himself was indicted. Many people thought that was a really good move, but it didn't impede his movement to the places he likes to go, namely China. Now, Netanyahu, that's another black eye in his face. He will not be able to travel to any country because under the principle of universal jurisdiction, they could nab him. They could nab him and bring him before the court in the Hague. So it is an extreme embarrassment, but it's not going to have any more effect because they can't come in and pluck him out of Tel Aviv

or West Jerusalem and bring him to court. It's got to be an in-person kind of thing if they try him. Why would, and maybe we'll find out eventually, why would they want to indict and arrest the chief negotiator for Hamas, the guy who huddles from Doha to Cairo to Gaza? That's not a mystery. The World Criminal Court has been under the influence of the West for a long time. This is part of the bargaining that went into, well, can we really indict those leading Israeli officials? And, oh, well, if you indict this Hamas guy who is really troubled because he's negotiating peace will go. So that's how I read

that. It's not surprising. They do this repeatedly. That is, the West and the Israelis do this repeatedly to Hamas officials who really are trying to tamp down tensions rather than stir them up. The death of the Iranian president, is there any evidence that there was foul play? And will his death bring about any change in Iran's policy towards Israel and the U.S.'s policy towards Iran, as far as you can tell? I would say it all depends, Judge, on whether they find evidence of foul play. Usually that can be ascertained. Right now, nobody's charging anyone else with that kind of sabotage. But as the days go by, it will become clearer whether there was a malfunction, too many clouds, or why was it just one of the three helicopters in that particular one?

So the jury's out. Nobody's made many claims as far as I know, but it is curious. And my God, if they find any evidence of foreign entanglement or foreign sponsorship. They're going to be all hell to pay, and the Iranians will feel compelled to do something similar in retaliation. Not that they'll start a war with Israel or anyone else, but they'll retaliate. You can take my word for it.

How about his replacement, the vice president? Is it safe to say same attitude, same mentality, same ideology? I don't know, Judge. I haven't kept up with the vice president, but I assume so. And of course, the Ayatollah Khamenei has made it clear that things will continue on the same path that they have been heretofore. Okay. Julian Assange, our friend and colleague, Matt Ho is in London today because when he left, he didn't know if he was going to be witnessing Julian Assange being taken out of the jail by U.S. Marshals. U.S. Marshals were there this morning in the courtroom and in the jail, as were U.S. prosecutors, they were all quite surprised when the two-judge panel

basically said, we don't accept the assurances of the United States government, and this issue was now ripe for appeal. So Assange gets to file another appeal. I don't know how long it's going to take. Usually an appeal is, well, it's neutral. Either side could win, but this is being interpreted as a victory for Assange because the longer it takes, the more likely it is that the United States and Australia will cut some kind of a deal. Just to remind people, the evidence of war crimes that Assange and WikiLeaks revealed were of war crimes committed by the George W. Bush administration that were revealed during the administration of Barack Obama. President Obama's Justice Department decided not to charge Julian Assange because he

was protected by the Pentagon in a papers case. It was President Trump's DOJ that decided to charge him. Trump told others, including your humble correspondent this morning, that he planned on pardoning Assange, something, of course, he never did. Your thoughts on all of this? Well, Judge, I'm saddened because I had expected this kind of decision. The U.S. is calling the shots here. It's very clear. Actually, the former deputy chief of security for the State Department, it made it clear when he worked for Stratfor that the idea is to shift around around from prison to prison, from court to court, and let them just peter out and die. Matter of fact, why don't we put his head in a full toilet bowl in Gitmo? So spake the former head of diplomatic security.

Now, the delay, my God, another appeal to the same court and then maybe to the European Court of Justice. I don't know. It's going to take a long time. I don't see time favoring Julian. I see that they want him to die in prison, and I fear that's what's going to eventuate from all this. The latest statements issued by President Xi and President Putin from and after President Putin's very splashy high-end visit to the Chinese president last week. What are those statements telling you, Ray?

Well, joint statements when the Chinese and the Russians make them matter, okay? It's in the tradition of the joint statement issued on the 4th of February 2022, three weeks before Putin sent his forces into Ukraine. At that time, the Chinese and the Russians said, look, we have an alliance here. We have a strategic cooperation agreement which dwarfs in significance any such agreements or alliances in the old Cold War. There are no limits to it. There's nothing we can't discuss together. And it was then, it was then that Putin received a, what, a nihil opstat. Nothing stands in the way of you going into pursue your own core interests,

which has become a Chinese phrase as well, in Ukraine. In other words, China acquiesced despite its long-term policy of Westphalia, Westphalia, you don't invade other countries, you don't mess around in the internal affairs of other countries. So that was the 4th of February, three weeks before the invasion. Now we have the statement last Friday, which repeats all these things and goes further. It specifically condemns moving medium-range ballistic missiles near a country, namely Russia, which is what the U.S. has already done in Romania and in Poland, which the U.S. in the person of President Biden promised not to do on New Year's Eve 2021. And then three weeks later, Blinken told Lavrov, forget about that. We have the right to put offensive strike missiles in Ukraine as well as in Poland and Romania.

And, yeah, they're only four or five minutes from Moscow once they get hypersonic missiles. So, you know, take that home and tell Vladimir that this is what we're going to do. So this joint statement just sets up this alliance. They don't call it a defense alliance. They say it's more comprehensive than that. It has no upper end. And there's a deliberate piece of ambiguity here. But you can be pretty sure, in my view, that if there's a real armed dust-up between U.S. forces and Russian forces in Ukraine or, God forbid, in Syria or wherever in the Middle East, the Chinese are going to do more than just saber-rattling in the South China Sea. As a matter of fact, just one week ago,

they bragged about ushering out, driving out was the word they used, a U.S. destroyer that was infringing on what they claim around these islands as their territorial waters. This sounds like a fairly detailed, fairly profound, fairly strategic statement that they issued. This sounds to me more than just, hey, we've got your back, you've got our back, like Article 5 of NATO. I guess they're trying to send a message to the U.S. State Department. Don't even think about trying to drive a wedge between us again. It's not going to happen. Yes, Judge. As you know, the only people surprised about this are the kind of benighted bureaucrats that come and run the State Department and other agencies

and the press that feeds off their spirit of exceptionalism. Here's the New York Times headline for today. It took them a whole since Friday to come up with this, okay? Here it says, see, that's Xi Jinping's warm embrace of Putin is a defiance of the West. Okay, so no hugging, please. No hugging. You can be really close strategically.

Down here it says, Mr. Xi even initiated a cheek-to-cheek, two cheeks, okay, cheek-to-cheek hug as he bade Mr. Putin farewell on Thursday. What do they think they're coming off here? Such demonstrative, in other words, hey, they're trying to send the, you're right, they're trying to send the message to the West, and especially to Western Europe, Europe as well, to say, look, we are in this together. We have core interests in Taiwan. Russia's going to help us out on that if, God forbid, push comes to shove. And we're going to help Russia out to get in trouble in either the Middle East or in Ukraine. The reality, of course, is Russia is far from in trouble in Ukraine.

They have the option now of just moving forward all the way to the Dnieper River. And one benchmark now is the 20th of May. So, yes, whoa, I guess that's today. It's today that Zelensky becomes no longer legal or even pseudoal because there's supposed to be a new president in Ukraine. Whether the Russians will take advantage of that and say, look, we can't possibly deal with an illegal president of Ukraine, I suspect they will. Will that make much difference? No, not unless the U.S. says, okay, the jig is up.

We got to pretty much talk about this stuff before it gets still worse. And there's no indication in Washington that there are people bright enough to realize that they're not going to be able to string this thing along until November. Putin and Xi can prevent that. There's going to be a chipping away of the front lines in Ukraine, as there is now, and there's going to be a buffer zone. Again, Putin over the weekend saying, look, Kharkov, yeah, that's right on our border.

So we're creating a buffer zone so that you can't fire on Russian territory and it has to be wider. The longer range missiles and weapons you put in there, the buffer zone has to be wider. So we're in for a really interesting next couple of months. If the U.S. really doesn't come to its senses, it's going to lose this war in a very ostentatious way, and worst of all for Biden, right before the election.

What kind of aid, other than this ostentatious geopolitical statement, if any, is China providing to Russia? Well, Judge, you know, there's a woman in charge of our national defense setup now. Her name is Averill Haynes. And she was asked a year and a half ago, what about this China-Russia relations? You never say anything about that. Are you worried about it? And she says, no, well, they have meetings. They meet together. They have meetings.

And as for aid from China to Russia, we watch that really closely, but we don't see any significant aid. So it's a year and a half ago. Now, somebody's got to be blamed for the fact that Ukraine is losing and losing badly. And who's likely suspect? Blame China. Say China's giving Russia the wherewithal to pursue this fight. That's wrong. It's actually a lie. And the Chinese really got really upset about this and said, look, you know, the war is being lost. Don't make us the scapegoat. We're going to conduct normal economic relations with Russia. And if that includes a couple of computer chips, well, so be it. We're not going to stop doing that no matter how many Janet Yellens

and Tony Blinkens you send our way. Speaking of women, I'm going to run this clip. I'm not even going to tell you who it is. She sort of emerged from her self-imposed isolation at Columbia University as Sonia. Cut number six. I think if the attacks are coming directly from over the line in Russia, that those bases ought to be fair game, whether they are where missiles are being launched from or where they are, where troops are being supplied from. I think it's time for that because Russia has obviously escalated this war, including, as you said at the beginning, attacking Russia's second city, Kharkiv, which is not on the

front lines and trying to decimate it without ever having to put a boot on the ground. So I think it is time to give the Ukrainians more help hitting these bases inside Russia. Wow. Victoria Nuland, of course, time to give Ukrainians more help to attack inside Russia. I guess her wish is World War III. She's out of power now, thanks be to God, but she's not out of crazy ideas. That's for sure. Now, this notion that the Russians are going to attack Kharkiv, Putin said they're not going to do that. What we're doing now is a cordon sanitaire, a little buffer zone, okay, around Kharkiv. We have no present plan to attack Kharkiv. Now, Kharkiv, if memory serves, is primarily a Russian-speaking city.

It's over a million people. Would Putin want to do that? Well, he might want to. Would he do it? No, he's too smart to do that kind of thing. As long as he isolates Kharkiv and has this popper zone, that suits him up in that part of Ukraine and the border with Russia and their city, Belgorod, which has been not only attacked by artillery, but raided by some of these special forces coming from Ukraine.

So the Ukrainians continue to do this. People like Nuland encourage them to do it. So do the British and so do the French. And, you know, they're trying to bait Putin. They're going to try to get him to retaliate like a big man should. But Putin is just too smart for that. He's got the upper hand. He's got big brother Xi at his back. He can wait. And how he plays the next couple of months during the election

season in the United States is going to be really interesting because he has the options, the United States does not. Here's former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Bobby, as you call him. I think you knew him and may have worked with him, acknowledging that Putin has rearmed and saying the Ukrainians are in hot water. Cut number four. Putin has taken the last six months to a year to rearm, reequip, to recruit. I've read numbers that he's putting as many as 30,000 new troops a month into Ukraine. They have more troops in Ukraine now, the Russians do, than they did at the beginning of the war. He's putting as many as 30,000 new troops a month into Ukraine. They have more troops in Ukraine now, the Russians do, than they did at the beginning of the war.

So I think the real issue now is how fast can we get the equipment that the Ukrainians need into the field, into their hands, beginning with air defense, but also artillery and rocket and missiles. And so I hope that there is a sense of huge urgency in the Pentagon and elsewhere about getting this equipment into the hands of the Ukrainians, literally within the next few weeks. You know, I watched this before we ran it here a couple of times. And at first I thought, he's drinking the Kool-Aid. Now I think maybe he isn't. He's recognizing they've got to get this equipment in the next few weeks. A, they don't have the people to operate the equipment. B, within the next few weeks, there might not be a government left in Ukraine or much of a military. That's how I read the end of that statement. We can run it again if you want. What do you think?

Now, Bobby Gates worked for me back in the 70s, okay? And then he achieved greater power and fame when Bill Casey came in and wanted somebody who would see the Soviets under every rock, okay? Right. He's a windsock, okay? And so now he sees where things are going. A windsock tells you what direction the winds are blowing.

And he's very, very attentive to this. That's how he got to where he is, for God's sake. Now what he's saying is, does he get there on time? It's kind of urgency. And if they don't do it urgent enough,

then I told them, I told them, you know what, this reminds me of Judge, after he and Petraeus and all those generals with the four stars insisted on sending more and more troops and more and more aid to Afghanistan and Iraq, okay, after that was all over, two months before Bobby Gates went off into the sunset, he said at West Point, you know, if a secretary of defense was asked by a president, should he get involved in a ground war in Asia, I would repeat what MacArthur said back then. And he said, it would be crazy. You should have your head examined if you get involved in a ground war in Asia. That's what I say. And oh, here's the guy that was responsible for not only rescuing Iraq by sending 10,000 more troops in at the end of Bush's first term, but also conjuring up this notion that they could prevail in Afghanistan if only we gave them

30,000, maybe 20,000 troops for a land war in Asia. So don't take Bobby Gates seriously. I'm surprised that he's still around and still making these speeches, but it appeals to an audience. And, of course, later he could say a month from now, he said, you know, I told him it was urgent. And you already said, Judge, it can't be very urgent. It is very urgent. He's right about that. But it's also impossible. They have no manpower.

And they don't even know how to use these weapons that are months and months away from arriving. So they won't arrive until after the election. That's big. Putin is in the cat burger seat here. What's he going to do? I think he's going to attrit, attrit, attrit, attrit, until he sees, well, he sees how the campaign is going,

the electric campaign in the United States, and he'll have many options to put in play. And so will the Chinese. His best friend Xi, Xi saying that six years ago voluntarily, and not only that, but taking the initiative now and giving this Russian bear a panda hug on both cheeks. On both cheeks. Ostentatiously, and as the New York Times says, against the West, you know, just defying the West. So that's the mindset here. The West is really who controls the rules-based international system,

such as they conjure it up to be. And Putin and Xi really shouldn't do this. This should disabuse any notion among our elite leadership that they can drive a wedge between Russia and China, that they can persuade China, look, please use your influence in Russia to get them to stop in Ukraine. They should disabuse them of that. I'm from Missouri. Show me. These people have 10 years impervious to thinking that they can't prevail. And that's the problem. What is your take on what Putin and Xi think motivates Washington? Is it some principle or is it Joe Biden's wish to get reelected?

It's hegemony. And curiously in their statement, they directly accused the United States by name of trying to exert hegemony over the whole world. It's American exceptionalism or American indispensability. And, you know, that's the concept, okay? Now, that Joe Biden buys into that, that Joe Biden seems to, well, actually does quote Madeleine Albright, the authoress of indispensability on the part of the United States, and said, you know, she had that

right, you know. Well, that gives them to believe that this guy really is far behind the times. And it was Madeleine Albright, of course, that said, well, 500,000 Iraqi children dead because of U.S. sanctions. Well, we think that's worth it. Yeah, that's worth it that's worth it 500,000 Ukrainian troops dead because of our policy because of our rejection of the truce agreement that was reached in April of 2022

well it's worth it genocide and Gaza it's worth it so I got problems with that, as you can see, Judge. But that's what the Russians and the Chinese see. And, you know, they're keeping their powder dry. They're not going to do anything really outlandish, but they're ready.

And as Lavrov said, if the U.S. wants to settle this on the battlefield, so be it. And as we know, Putin doesn't bluff. Ray, thank you very much. My dear friend, thank you for your analysis. We covered a lot of topics. Look forward to seeing you and Larry at the end of the week on the Intelligence Community Roundtable. All the best, my friend.

Thanks, Judge. Of course. Coming up later today, later this morning, Eastern Time, the aforesaid Larry Johnson will be here at 11 o'clock. At 2 o'clock Eastern, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. At 3 o'clock Eastern, Colonel Douglas McGregor. At 4.30 Eastern, Scott Ritter, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. We'll see you next time. to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu.