Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern: Will CIA help BiBi?

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

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Thank you. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, January 8th, 2024. Ray McGovern is here with us on the role of the CIA in the International Criminal Court, the IDF investigating Prime Minister Netanyahu. What is that all about? 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 McGovern, welcome here.

Before we start, I want you to see what one of the readers and followers wrote in. Allow the ray of hope to McGovern you. That's nice. Ray always brightens up my day despite the seriousness of the discussion. I wish we still made me like him in America. Wow. So you're out there. Here we go.

A ray of sunshine through the gloom of destiny. Larry Johnson's going to be jealous of this, Professor McGovern. All right. Is the Israeli IDF scaling back its operations in Gaza? And if so, why? Well, it is. It's announced that again today. That's what Secretary Austin, of recent memory, advised them to do two weeks ago. He warned them that they would suffer a strategic defeat if they didn't do that, and that they should avoid a house-to-house fighting in urban settings, which he knew something about, said Austin. The Israelis didn't like it, but it looks like they've pulled in their horns. That's one reason.

Another reason is that Scott Ritter, as usual, was right. The famed and fabled IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, doesn't deserve the fame that it has had in the past. Scott described it quite well weeks ago, saying it wasn't prepared to take on Hamas. And indeed, he turned out to be right yet again. Then there's this International Criminal Court, International Court of Justice proceeding. Thursday, it starts in an expedited way. That, of course, is directed at genocide.

For genocide, you get hanged or shot in the old days. At least you get in prison or some, in other words, it's bad, okay? Now, Austin is a smart enough guy to realize that he fell in with a bad group, okay? He gets home on the, well, he gets home from Israel about the 18th of December, 1920th, and he looks all this over. Then the International Court of Justice has its ruling on the 29th. What happens next? Austin disappears. Where is he? He's at Walter Reed. Why did he tell anybody? I don't know. It really speaks for something very strange. I've talked to a couple of doctors, and their best guess is it went in for a procedure to put a stent in. I've had that done. And a piece of flak got loose and caused problems.

And they're really, really concerned about treating those things these days. That's one benign answer. Now, he was in Israel on the 18th, 19th of December. How long does it take food poisoning to take effect? I won't go there, but

there are lots of reasons why Austin went on a hideout. Do you think he was candid with the Israelis and said, you've got to dial it back, you're losing the PR war, you're losing the ground war? Or do you think he said the same nonsense in private to them that he said to us in public, you know, we're behind you 110% and we'll give you whatever you need? Strangely enough, I think he was blunt with them. Matter of fact, the reporting indicated that even the New York Times mentioned that the Israelis were not happy with Austin at all, that he talked turkey to them, and this urban warfare thing was a very big deal.

Now, most of the people who are left alive in Gaza are down in the south. It's going to be just bloodletting, bloodletting, bloodletting. And so I think that with the court procedure starting and all kinds of other things happening where Biden is finally realizing that this is a no-win situation for him politically. The Israelis have agreed to cease and desist for the nonce. Now, the other thing I mentioned, I mentioned this last week as a straw in the wind, okay? The USS General Ford, Gerald Ford, pulled back out of the area. That was odd with the increased tensions. And what was that all about? I think that was Austin's or maybe the White House's way of saying, okay, look,

you guys don't play ball. Don't listen to us. We're going to give you some reason for concern. And indeed, there was lots of reason for concern in Israel. So that was another straw in the wind, I think, at that particular, I remember at that particular time that the Israelis for the first time said they were pulling out several brigades out of Gaza. So combination of Ritter being right, the IDF not winning so handily. And then last but not least, Hezbollah. Do they want a two-front war? There's a report that the Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that if they had to go against Hezbollah in the north, Israel would lose, as they did previously. So all these things coming together here, I do see some rays of light. That's a great analysis, Ray. Let me just give a little background.

The International Court of Justice is a court of the United Nations, and it is not a criminal court. It is a civil court. It resolves disputes between nations. It does hear cases over genocide, but it doesn't have the ability to punish. Ray is quite correct when he said this is expedited. The South African complaint, this is a complaint by the government of South Africa, a member nation of the United Nations against the government of Israel, another member nation of the United Nations. The government of South Africa filed a detailed, footnoted, precisely accurate complaint against the government of Israel,

citing and quoting words and statements made by Prime Minister Netanyahu and members of his work cabinet, as well as open source information about what the IDF is doing and accused it of genocide. The Israelis responded and said, this is a blood libel. We'll answer it. Well, they only have two more days to answer it because the hearing begins on Thursday, because you are quite correct, Ray. They did expedite the hearing. They normally don't do it this quickly. This is a 13-member panel of judges. I don't know if all 13 of them will hear this.

My guess is that all 13 of them will. They're appointed by the UN. One of them is an American. This is not the International Criminal Court before which Russian President Putin has been indicted. That is a criminal court which does have the ability to punish. Not every nation is a part of that. Israel, the United States, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, what a group, are not members of that court. All other nations in the world are. But the court before which this complaint by South Africa has been filed, all member nations of the UN are subject to the court. Do you think it is obvious to the intelligence community worldwide, whether it's Russia, Russian, Ukraine, Chinese, American,

Great Britain, whoever it may be, that the IDF has failed in its efforts to crush Hamas? I believe it is becoming clearer and clearer. And first and foremost, to the Israelis themselves. I think they are very upset about what's going to happen now at the International Court of Justice. Just think of the implications. If it becomes a pariah nation by law, all kinds of things happen, not only a blockade in the Red Sea. So I think they may be concerned about this. I don't know if it's too late to cut off the genocide. The court proceeding will proceed. Ehud Barak, a former prime minister of Israel, apparently has been designated their lawyer or their representative.

And it's just going to be very, very interesting to see how things work out on Thursday. Meanwhile, there is sort of a pause, not a pause, but a lessening of the military bombing and chaos in the southern part of Gaza. And that's a good thing. Maybe the other aircraft carrier, the USS Eisenhower, will also be withdrawn from the area, sitting up target as it is. What became of the 2,000 Marines that Secretary Austin sent? Were they on one of the two aircraft carriers? They're certainly not on the ground. Well, I don't know for sure.

Each one of those aircraft carriers carries about 5,000 folks, but they're not all Marines. I think the Marines were often in some neighboring country like Greece or Turkey or Crete or someplace like that, but they were ready to go on their own landing ships. Luckily, or so far luckily, that wasn't called for. And it looks like many people in Washington are a little fed up with the Israelis, feel a little bit double-crossed by Israeli protestations,

that now we can win this hands down. And Hezbollah will never, never think of starting a second front. It has. It destroyed a key Israeli facility on the highest mountain, if you call it mountain, highest hill in northern Israel just two days ago, and that installation regulated a lot of air traffic, including military air traffic, and was an intercept station as well. So Hezbollah can do all kinds of damage. It's very interesting that the Defense Intelligence Agency in our country is saying or leaking, look, Israel, you're not going to win if you get in a war with Hezbollah. What we have on the screen is a portion from the South African complaint showing the level of detail.

Professor John Mearsheimer analyzed this for us. I've read it. It is extremely detailed and extremely well documented. It's beyond me how former Prime Minister Barak is going to be able to answer this and defend Israel. But you can see civilians throughout Gaza face grave danger. The health care system in Gaza is collapsing. Nowhere is safe in Gaza amid constant bombardment by the Israeli Defense Forces and without shelter or essentials to survive. Since these letters were written, the numbers have risen more starkly, 21,000. It's now over 22,000 are dead. The allegations, according to

Professor Mearsheimer, who knows more about this than I do, are inassailable and indefensible. Now, I spent a good part of my career reading criminal and civil complaints. I've rarely seen one as detailed and well-documented and well footnote from public sources as this. So we'll see where it goes. I think you're right. Designating Israel as a pariah nation could be catastrophic for a diplomatically,

economically and politically, might actually provoke the government to collapse and Prime Minister Netanyahu to lose his job. That almost happened over the weekend, Ray. The Financial Times reports big brouhaha and shouting match in the Israeli war cabinet over the weekend because the IDF wants to investigate the Israeli government to see what failed on October 7th. Can you imagine that? This would be like the Defense Department investigating the Biden administration. But apparently this type of an investigation is going to happen. Question, will the CIA or the NSA, up until he read the text of the complaint, he was not saying there was a genocide. No, he says, my God, sure there was a genocide. intelligence involvement. I don't think that the U.S. intelligence people are even well aware about what's going on at the top among these leaders of Israel. It's a Donnybrook. They are arguing with us. They're failing to attend meetings. And this really strong reaction to an

investigation by the IDF of what happened on the 7th of October, that led to a real dotty book, as you say, just over the weekend. So the Israelis are sort of falling apart too. Now, you mentioned intelligence involvement. You know, this is a little off to the side, but maybe not. People should remember that NSA and all kinds of technical means are available to influence the International Court of Justice, not the Israeli government, although that would be possible. And what do I mean? the CIA, as you normally do, Judge, well, we have the precedent, the precedent of January 31st, 2003, roughly two months before the attack on Iraq. NSA sent a message to GCHQ, which is their opposite number in the British system, and said, look,

we want a favorable UN resolution to approve this war. And here are the countries, here are the non-permanent members. We want you to surge your capability. Make sure you get everything you can on the members of the Security Council. Here are some of the words that was in that document. Mounting a surge directed at UN members and that the whole gamut of information that could give U.S. policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to U.S. goals or to head off surprises. Whoa! Now, long story short, Catherine Gunn leaked that to the London Observer. It was published very soon in February, but it didn't do any good. What's the point here? The point here is that, you know, be aware, members of the International Court of Justice, turn off your cell phones and make sure that you have no bodies in your attic.

There are lots of potential for this kind of trickery to exist now against the International World Court. Who would perpetrate the trickery, the American intelligence community or the Mossad? Well, you're talking about, it's both joined at the hip, but NSA has even more capabilities than Mossad, and NSA enlists the help of fraternal services, as indicated by what they did on the 31st of January 2003. So what I'm saying here is that in the two or three days left and thereafter, the members, 13 members of this International Court of Justice, should expect to be held to close scrutiny, maybe offered certain things, but the skullduggery will happen. And that would be the role that I would assign, that I would expect from NSA and the rest of the intelligence community. It's really bad, not only for Israel,

it's bad for the US, and it's bad for General Secretary Austin. And I imagine that may have, that was two days before he disappeared. Maybe he, you know, maybe it was a little too much. Maybe he had a little angina, the fact that going before the International Court of Justice. Our friend and colleague Alistair Crook characterized this shouting, screaming, not attending, storming, stamping your feet meeting of the Israeli war cabinet as the earliest stages of a coup intended to break up the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu, which of course would force him from office. If you think that Netanyahu is a monster, you'll be glad that he's gone. If you think, this is Alistair Crook now, if you think the policies of the Israeli government will change with his successor, think again. The Israeli government, the Israeli public has been moved far to the right and supports the policies of the government against Gaza in overwhelming numbers. And even the liberal leaders in the Israeli Knesset, if one of them became prime minister,

Benny Gantz or Yair Lapid would probably continue with the same policies. As for Netanyahu himself, if he's out of office, he's got a lot of problems. He's back on trial. He's the subject of a criminal investigation. He's the subject of three criminal prosecutions. I guess I shouldn't be surprised

that the American intelligence community would be attempting to tamper with an international court of justice by tampering with the private communications, personal lives, and public persona of the justices on that court? Well, it's happened again.

If it can happen in the UN Security Council, it can happen anywhere. And you have friendly services cooperating. You could even get people other than the Israelis looking into this. It's a very important issue. And all I'm saying is they've done it before. They have carte blanche to do it because that's in their portfolio. And I speak of not only CIA, but NSA, especially in this case, because it's mostly technical collection. So it's not a sort of afterthought. These people really ought to be careful because the capability is there. I don't know who these 13 members are, but they should be on the alert for approaches and all kinds of other skullduggery.

I want to show you a little clip. This is Congressman Jamie Raskin, who before he was in the House of Representatives, was a highly regarded professor of constitutional law. And I know him from that community. It's a relatively small community of those of us who taught constitutional law at the law school level. Nevertheless, he's now a liberal Democrat from Maryland, and he's attempting to give a speech outside the Capitol building. And you'll get a kick out of this having been there yourself, Ray. Watch what happens. The political scientists tell us that the hallmarks of an authoritarian or fascist political party are that one, they do not accept the results of

democratic elections that don't go their way. Two, they refuse to renounce or they openly embrace political violence as an instrument. What's the matter with this? Something wrong with the scientists? We'll let them off. instruments. They hold Israel accountable. They accept that they are worse than Jan 6. Hold Israel accountable. Israel is not above the law. They accept. I'm sorry. Let me just start that again. So she's standing there silently with a sign saying Israel is not above the law, while the congressman is talking about authoritarian countries, and they shouldn't be above the law. But I guess that was too much for the Capitol Police to tolerate. Just as a young Ray McGovern standing with his back to Secretary Clinton.

Too much for the Capitol Police to tolerate. Chris found that and we couldn't resist running it for you. Authoritarians can't stand to have their message interfered with. You know this better? Well, when I turned my back silently standing up at GW University, Larry Wilkerson got me a ticket to Hillary Clinton's big speech. I didn't say a word, but I was beaten up pretty badly. The irony was that she was giving a big speech about the need for human rights and the protection of protesters in Iran. She's giving a speech about the protection of protesters. You're silently protesting and the cops are beating the daylight out of you. Yeah, that time I didn't end up in prison. Didn't end up in prison.

Thank goodness. They're just in jail for several hours, but other times have been a lot worse. But anyhow, yeah, that was kind of interesting. Now I knew Marcus Raskin, Jamie's father, and I just hope Marcus is somewhere where he doesn't hear what Jamie is doing these days. Wow. Ray, it's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you for your intellect. Thank you for your insight.

Thank you for your courage. We'll see you at the end of the week with Larry for the Intelligence Roundtable. All the best. And to you. Thank you. Coming up at 11 o'clock, the aforesaid Larry Johnson on, is the British Navy really advertising for admirals? You won't believe this. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.