Judging Freedom - Russian Sanctions - What do You Think?... Did They Work? w/Alastair Crowe fmr Brit ambassador

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

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Thank you. everyone judge andrew napolitano here for judging freedom today is thursday august 3rd 2023 alistair crook joins us now from umbria, Italy. Alistair, always a pleasure. Thank you very much for coming back to the show. I want you to watch a clip, which I think you've seen before, because it will form the springboard for our conversation about how the president of the United States and NATO seem to think that by controlling the narrative, they can control the war. Now, here is Joe Biden. This is three weeks old, but it's profound. He's in Helsinki, and it's right after he left the meeting of NATO leaders in Vilnius, Lithuania in mid-July. The issue of whether or not this is going to keep Putin from continuing to fight, the answer is Putin's already lost the war. Putin has a real problem.

How does he move from here? What does he do? And so the idea that there's going to be what vehicle is used, he could end the war tomorrow. He could just say, I'm out. But what agreement is ultimately reached depends upon Putin and what he decides to do. But there is no possibility of him winning the war in Ukraine. He's already lost that war.

Imagine if even if anyway, he's already lost that war. Imagine if even if anyway, he's already lost that war. Okay, in his own sort of stumbling way, he managed to get out of his mouth three times, whatever the talking points are. We have heard nearly identical things from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, from Director of the CIA Bill Burns, and from, forgive me, I forget his name, the person in charge of MI6. What is going on here? Well, either there is a sort of collective delusion or else they're setting a narrative. And I believe there is some element of delusion, yes. But I think ultimately this is a deliberate decision to stick with a narrative and to try and enforce it.

And it is two parts. One is that Ukraine hasn't really failed. It's interesting to note that even today, some of the Western press is coming out with saying, yeah, there are problems and there's a bit too much sort of undergrowth in the area. And this accounts for the slow Ukrainian progress. But they haven't failed. And maybe they'll start again this winter or this autumn. Well, they won't start again this autumn, this winter, because it's already petering out their offensive. They've taken nothing during this period, nothing of any value in terms of real estate. It has been a disaster in terms of loss of manpower and a loss of equipment. So I think what's going on is to try and set this double narrative, which is Ukraine isn't really losing, but Putin has lost.

Putin has lost for sure. And that is something that you've got to take away. And this is the narrative. Putin has lost. And they're just trying to repeat this and repeat this and hope that media will pick it up and that then they can move away from the narrative. Putin has lost. And they're just trying to repeat this and repeat this and hope that media will pick it up and that then they can move away from the narrative slowly, slowly, that it will get forgotten. And they can say, you know, this is it. Closure. Let's move on, people. You know, let's just go to another subject. What is their internal rationale or what do you suppose their internal rationale is?

Surely they know that Ukraine is getting clobbered on the ground. Surely they know that there have been two fits and starts for this so-called spring offensive, one in the spring, one in the summer, and neither has been much of an offensive. So whoever makes the decision to come out with these one-liners that they all come out with, and I don't know how this decision is made individually or collectively, what is their rationale? Well, their rationale is that we can enforce it. We can enforce it through the media. Everyone stays on narrative, if all the Europeans parrot the narrative, if all of the establishment parrots the narrative, Russia is losing, then somehow it's a win, that it's a victory.

But it's become much more complicated, and I was going to say, especially for you, I mean, these recent court cases, but certainly the latest court case involving allegations, if you like, of influence peddling that have been made by certain people. I mean, this really binds Ukraine to the hip with Biden and Hunter Biden and his father, because there's no way around it. More and more, this is going to be the case. So the more that they develop the Ukraine story domestically in the United States, the more it is going to cause the opponents of Biden's Democratic Party to emphasize these

problems and these problems and already we see President Trump has has jumped on this and he said very clearly, you know what? Russiagate was where this all started in Ukraine It was because of the Russiagate lies that we have Ukraine because you went against it So all the time that they continue this narrative of Ukraine, they're in a sense digging their own hole for themselves in terms of public opinion, and maybe in terms of legal opinion. You'd know better than I on that. Paul Jay Another example of this was the Nord Stream

pipeline. At first the mantra was the Russians did it, the Russians did it, like the Russians would really want to cut off their ability to sell natural gas to northern Europe. Then when that didn't wash, and after Seymour Hersh's incredible and brilliant investigative journalism, which caught all the mainstream media flat-footed. The narrative was, two guys in a sailboat did it, and they showed a picture of the sailboat. Does anybody in Europe believe these narratives the way they do in America? I shouldn't say any. Do a significant number of people in Europe believe these narratives the way they do in America?

No. And I talked to Sy about this about ten days ago when he was with me in France. And certainly in Germany, which is the crux of it, it's not believed at all. And this is why German public opinion is shifting. No, no one in Europe any longer believes that story. I mean, it was intended to be what I call a sort of scandal implosion strategy, but it hasn't worked. And so everyone knows that that is the case. It's just not, it just hasn't worked. It was a feeble, feeble attempt to provide a cover story. I mean, not even convincing to the authors that did it, and perhaps they knew that it

wasn't going to be convincing. I don't know. But I mean, you couldn't come up with anything more pathetic. One of President Biden's other mantras, aside from Putin has already lost the war, is that America will support Ukraine for as long as it takes. You and I, Colonel McGregor, Scott Ritter, Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, Matthew Ho, and others have argued as long as it takes to do what? Now, the government doesn't want to answer that. We believe as long as it takes means to use a battering ram, use Ukraine as a battering ram to chase President Putin from office. Do you think they still believe that? The war has been going on for 16 months. Ukraine has suffered horrifically. President Putin endured a coup attempt, whether real or fanciful.

He's still triumphant. He's still in power. He still has an 82 to 86 percent, depending upon which poll you look at, approval rate. You know, there's some wishful thinking going on clearly here. But no, they don't, they know that very clearly. And, you know, because originally, perhaps the Ukrainians, Kiev, were giving them, you know, the propaganda line and people weren't line is very clear. We don't have the means. We don't have the men. The NATO tactics have failed. We're going to give up on NATO tactics. We're going to go back to the tactics we know and have been trained on because we're suffering terrible, devastating losses. I mean, just last week, there was a huge loss of both men and tanks. I mean, really huge, 30 tanks or so.

So I'm sure they know it, but they are stuck in this idea of winning narratives. And if you can win the narratives and say, I have a narrative that Russia is weak. I mean, it's such an old, old narrative about what, you know, it actually goes back to 1760, the narrative of Russia being weak, when it was invented by Louis XV, who'd married a Polish wife, and they set up this full story about the star. So we know where he got it from, his Polish wife. Yes, total fake, total fake, the story of the Peter the Great document that, you know, Russia was going to take over Europe and it had these ambitions and everything. And they used it. Napoleon used it. And we still use it today. Russia is weak. Russia is incompetent. Its forces are weak. And so I suppose some of that has sort of permeated into the teaching at West Point and

other things, because, you know, you have to be anti-Russian to rise now, and you have to be anti-Russian, anti-China. As Viktor Orban of Hungary was saying, you know, what are European values at the moment? And he said, well, European values are basically war, LBGTQ and migration. I mean, he said this publicly in a thing. I mean, you know, and look, and Europe is about to start another colonial war in West Africa, in Niger, in order to preserve its uranium supply for France and for the European Union, which Nigeria is the biggest supplier of this. And it seems very close.

It's very possible that there'll be a military intervention, if not by the forces linked to Nigeria, but also even French forces are being contemplated, may be involved. The ultimatum expires on the 6th of August, so this is quite soon, quite soon. We're going to take a break. When we come back, I'm going to ask Alistair

about whether NATO considers itself still to be omnipotent, and we're going to play a tape of Mrs. Zelensky showing impatience with President Biden. But first this. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Lear Capital. Are you tired of feeling helpless while roller coaster markets and economic uncertainty wreak havoc on your savings? It's time to take control of your financial future and consider investing in gold. Gold has a long history as a safe haven for investors who want

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And for a limited time, you might be able to qualify for a $15,000 bonus gold with a qualifying purchase. So call my friends at Lear, 800-511-4620, or do as I do and go on the internet, learjudgenap.com. Alistair, does NATO still consider itself omnipotent in Europe? Probably there are still some delusions, but nobody else thinks they're omnipotent. Indeed, the opposite. I mean, they seem to have been, this is a NATO-led defeat. I mean, people are going to blame, of course, the Ukrainians for the defeat. But the doctrine, I mean, the weapons, the doctrine that was taught to them, which was imported from 1991, War in the Gulf, and in which there was a sort of great tank victory.

In fact, I think Colonel McGregor was directly leading that part of it. But it was fortuitous because already by then, Saddam Hussein had announced that the withdrawal from Kuwait and that there was to be no fighting. So they were fighting against a defeated army, but they've used this idea of the armored fist pushing through the Russian lines as the doctrine that the Ukrainians must use, even though Russian defensive lines are not the desert in Iraq. It is a major doctrinal failure, and it is a failure not only of doctrine, but of the sense that NATO in the West has competence, that they can understand a military problem, and their weapons have largely been disappointing. And I think now we get for the first time the

military-industrial complex actually not wanting to send more weapons to Ukraine because they all lie sort of smoldering wrecks on the battlefield, which is not good for the sales force. Before we play the clip from Mrs. Zelensky showing impatience with President Biden, I want to stay on NATO for just a little bit longer. You mentioned the coup in Niger, and you mentioned the general who now claims the presidency of Niger is not likely to be exporting their extraordinarily valuable natural resource, which is uranium. What is Emmanuel Macron going to do, send troops in there to kill the general and steal the uranium? And if anybody shoots at those troops, does it trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty? Is the United States going to find itself, along with Germany and other NATO countries, bogged down in a civil war in Africa

over this? Yes. It's very unstable in that area because there have been two coups just in 1921 and 1922, if you like, against the West, against Francophone imposition in that part of Africa. It's been a very anti-Western, anti-French moves against it. And two coups were mounted. And what is so disturbing for the West is when they've seen this latest coup in Niger, that the backdrop, you see pictures of people waving Russian flags. And it was quite clearly an anti-colonial, if you like, action. And it's quite possible that other states will join in. They've already said they may engage on the side of Niger against Nigeria, which is the sort of the big power in ECOWAS. It provides 70% of the funding. And France has also talked about that they may send or use aerial bombardment in order to try and bring an end to the coup in Niger and to get the uranium flowing again. So it is, I mean, a disaster for Europe because this is a clear rejection of Europeanism and of colonialism and pro-Russian. So it's part of the Cold War. And so Europe is

inclined to go the full colonial and to try and intervene in West Africa again, to try and impose some sort of settlement on Niger. Back to Ukraine. We'll run the clip of Mrs. Zelensky. It's pretty quick. So, Gary, let's run it twice. It's in Ukrainian, so of course I will translate it, but because it's so brief,

we'll run it twice, and then I'm anxious to hear your thoughts on it, Alistair. We keep hearing from our Western partners that they will be with us as long as it takes. Long is not the word we should use. We should use the word faster. Let's run it again, Gary. We keep hearing from our Western partners that they will be with us as long as it takes. Long is not the word we should use.

The word we should use is faster. Now, let's just assume that this was not a slip of the lip. What do they gain by putting her on national television other than maybe for domestic political consumption and having her directly get in the face of their biggest patron, Joe Biden? Because the relations with Biden are very, very cold at the moment, very sour. There's irritation. But the point here, and I think what she was trying to call attention to, which may become much more important later, is the unstated commitment that was given back in March when Ukraine was told to cut the deal with Russia and to withdraw all the concessions that they had made. Boris Johnson was in the lead of this, but at the same time, Boris Johnson on behalf of the West and the West directly said, you have a blank check for as long as it takes, whatever it takes. And here you have Ukraine referring to that and reminding the West, you made us an offer. You said, you know, and here we are stuck losing people. We're getting nowhere at all. We would like some support as long as it takes and with whatever it takes.

And you're reneging on your agreement with us. So it may develop. And I was saying, if you put this in the context of where we're also looking at the legal cases that are coming up, the Hunter Biden one particularly, about the possibility of influence, then you can see what was the nature, who has the hold over whom. Is it Ukraine has a hold over Washington or Washington has a hold over Kiev? Maybe we'll find out in the days that come. If I were to say to Joe Biden, Mr. President, as long as it takes to do what, and he were to give a coherent answer, now those are two big ifs. He's not going to take a question from me and he's not known for coherent answers. What would it be? What would it be until Putin is driven from office? Until the Ukrainians

take Crimea to goals that are militarily impossible for Ukraine to achieve? You see, it was all predicated on quite different terms when they started it. It was predicated on the fact that the financial war would win and win very quickly. That when the sanctions were imposed on Russia, and you remember the French foreign minister, I mean, the finance minister was saying, we're going to collapse the Russian economy and we're going to, it's going to be over and we'll be going back and we'll be buying cheap raw material and energy very, very soon. So the front line in this war was always the financial war, which was supposed to lead to a collapse.

And then there would be political disturbances in Moscow and unhappiness with the government. And then the Ukrainian war was always the sort of additional, the added element that would put further pressure on Putin and on the government and hopefully lead, as they saw it, to its fragmentation and dissolution. And so it was wrongly calculated from the beginning. They thought that, and Europe thought that,

and Europe thought that when it stopped buying Russian energy, that Russia would collapse because it wouldn't have anyone to sell it to. That too has proved to be a totally wrong decision. So I think that's why we are ending up in this awkward situation of trying to pursue a narrative that doesn't make sense because it was based on this initial intelligence assessment, which they gave to the Europeans as well as them. It's one of the most egregious wrong intelligence assessments of the era. They said that the sanctions, financial sanctions, like in 97, would collapse the financial system in Russia and that that would lead to political turmoil. And they just hadn't done their homework and noted how much Russia had changed in the last 20 years. Before we conclude, I want your thoughts on the West's favorite former

general, whom everyone will recognize as soon as we hear him, with whom I believe you have even had a personal encounter a few years ago. I think they need to be doing what they actually are now doing, having adapted their plan. Of course, no plan survives contact with the enemy. And it was quickly clear that these miles-long minefields, anti-personnel, anti-tank minefields, tank ditches, dragon's teeth, trench lines full of Russian soldiers, all overwatched by forward observers and drones with artillery on call, that these are going to be very, very difficult to breach, given the shortcomings that the Ukrainians have in certain assets that we would have deployed

in this kind of situation, in particular, massive air power. We would have just carpet bombed the whole area of these minefields, tried to blow up as much as we possibly could. And then very substantial, heavily armed, essentially bulldozers, D9 bulldozers that just plow their way through this, supported again by close air support, attack helicopters and the rest. They don't have that. So they've adapted, I think, impressively. He's living in an alternate universe, Alistair. Totally, totally. And, you know, it's back to the old thing, massive power, carpet bomb, destroy everything. We would be able to. But the trouble is, this is Russia.

Russia has a better air force than probably the United States of America. It has a lot of sophisticated weapons, and they have air defense. And simply what he's suggesting that is done, that Ukraine should then sort of obliterate the rear lines behind the Russians by using artillery. They don't have it. They don't have that artillery. The HIMARS have nearly all been destroyed by Russia. It's not there. Russia has massive artillery preponderance in this exercise.

It's time to have a talk with him and told him the truth about this. Did you once have a talk with General Petraeus? Not directly, but I did. I was asked to go and look at what was happening in Iraq. This was in 2006 when ISIS was there. And half of the Sunnis were with ISIS and half of them were in the government. And they asked me to go and talk to the tribal leaders. And I came back from that discussions and I said to the Pentagon, look, be very careful about what you do with this.

They're asking for weapons to fight ISIS. They don't intend to use them against ISIS. They want them to fight the Shi. If you do this, you'll end up in a civil war. Petraeus was the one who sort of said, rubbish, let's have a surge. It will be good PR. LEON KASSIMOFF ALISTAIR SIMM Alistair Simm, these things just keep repeating themselves. Alistair Sim, that's the famous British actor. Alistair Crook, thank you very much for joining us, my dear friend. How can our audience stay, how can the Judging Freedom audience stay in touch with you, Alistair? Either through strategic-culture.org is where I write usually once a week.

Perhaps more difficult for your audience will be I write on sort of wider topics in Al-Mayadeen on the English section. And you can see the articles I write there, which are slightly different because they're dealing mostly with a sort of wider geopolitical influences on the whole region and the balance of forces geopolitically. Pleasure to have you on. Thanks very much for joining us. Thank you indeed. Thank you. More as we get it,

including Colonel Douglas McGregor at one o'clock Eastern today. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. I'm out.