Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter: How Dangerous is US Support for Israel and Ukraine?

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Scott Ritter: How Dangerous is US Support for Israel and Ukraine?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. There's a familiar phrase. Scott Ritter joins us back from his home studio after three weeks in Russia. Scott, what a pleasure, my dear friend. Welcome back to the show. I think you were in Russia for about three weeks. So I want to start out with your general impressions of the Russian people, their relationship to their government, and the special military operation in Ukraine? Well, the first thing I'll point out is that I went there during a very special time for the Russian people, New Year's, which is their big winter celebration. And then now that Russia in the post-Soviet era

has re-embraced the Orthodox faith, the Orthodox Christmas is also a very big deal. And to see, you know, I think we've talked before about my visit in May, and I talked about Victory Day and how important it was to be in Russia on May 9th and see the Russian people and how they responded to Victory Day. It was the same thing to be in Russia and see the Russian people and how they responded to Victory Day. It was the same thing to be in Russia and see the people as they responded to New Year's. This is not a nation that's cowed. This is a nation that is falling back in love with itself.

The decade of the 90s, it will never be forgotten because it's seared into the memory of every Russian who was alive back then, the same way that the Second World War was seared into the memories of the veterans. It was a debacle, a catastrophe. And the fact that Vladimir Putin has led Russia out of this catastrophe and made Russia what it is today, despite all of the efforts of the collective West to not just undermine Russia, but to destroy Russia. I think Sergei Lavrov has said it correct in recent statements. The policy of the United States is to destroy Russia and not to be friends with Russia, not to contain Russia, to destroy Russia, to defeat Russia. And despite all that,

the Russian people are alive and well and living. If you were in Moscow during this period of time, you would have seen a city that is alive and vibrant, full of people who are enjoying life. Stores that are full of goods. The same in St. Petersburg to see, you know, the second largest city just thriving. The Russian people know that there's a war going on. There's no doubt in anybody's mind that there is this conflict taking place. They're not cocky. They're not overconfident, but they are steeled with a resolve that says, we are seeing this through until the end, and the end will only come with a Russian victory. So it doesn't matter what a daily

analyst says, this happened, that happened. It doesn't matter because they don't care about the daily stuff. They're in it for the long run. They're in it to win. And I will tell you this, the senior political figures that I met with, the military commanders I met with, they're winning it this year. They are determined that this conflict is coming to an end on terms that will be dictated by Russia. So that's what I saw in Russia, just a people who love their nation as much as any American could love their nation, love their culture, they love their history, and they love their leader. And again, in America, we, you know, we tend to demonize this guy, Vladimir Putin, say he's not a Jeffersonian

Democrat, never was meant to be, but he is a Russian Democrat. He is of the people. And the people right now overwhelmingly support him, support what he's doing, and believe in him because they remember literally 30 years ago what was going on in Russia. They know what happens if you get too close to the West. If you buy into the lies of the West, they're not going to do it anymore. This is a Russia that has embraced the notion of self-sufficiency and true independence. And it was beautiful to see. Again, I'm American. They always ask me, are you pro-Russian? Are you for Russia? And my response was, no, not just no, but hell no. I'm an American. I'm pro-America. I'm for America. But the best thing that America can do is be friends with Russia. And that's what I'm trying to promote, U.S.-Russian friendship. What is your impression of the feelings of Russian people

toward the government? I will tell you an anecdote, and this is ridiculous because of the source. Jack Devine gave an interview, laugh already, to an Australian newspaper while you were away. You probably didn't see it. The New York Post picked it up, and the headlines in the New York Post was, ex-CIA big predicts Putin demise by the end of the week. Now, Jack denies that he said that, but a fair reading of the interview that he gave to this Australian newspaper was expect a black swan very soon. It could be as soon as the end of the week. This was a month ago. When I interrogated him about this two days ago, he stood by it, but said he was misinterpreted. Is there any reason to believe that Putin is not solid, stable in his position and wildly appreciated by the Russian public? No, there's no reason to believe otherwise. Look, Russia is a democracy. I remind people, there's a communist party in Russia that forms an opposition. They would like to come back in power. And there are other political

elements who are opposed to Vladimir Putin. When we speak of his popularity, it's around 76%, sometimes surges up to 80. But that means that 20 to 24% of Russians aren't pro-Putin. That's the nature of the beast, but they're not anti-Russia. That's the difference. You can have people who have a difference of opinion with Vladimir Putin and they can express it. I heard it all the time. The notion that you can't speak in Russia is just 100% garbage. You can't take money from the CIA and go out and articulate against the Russian government. That's treason. You know, and so people are always like, well, they arrested this person. Well, he probably shouldn't have taken CIA money. But the people that speak out and have, you know,

are expressing their opposition, they're allowed to. But Putin has overwhelming support. American presidents would die to have 76 to 80 percent levels of support. Putin has that right now. But the other thing that people have to understand is it's not a dictatorship, meaning that this isn't a government, a country that's run by one man. It's actually a huge country that's broken up into districts and obelisks and regions. And each one of these has a governor or a district head or the head of a region. And they run these areas. And it's a collective. This isn't Stalin, you know, dictating to the masses. This is, you know, more of a decentralized approach to government. And so these regional heads report

to Putin, Putin coordinates with them, and they come up with a collective approach to solving the problems. Putin's a hell of a manager, a hell of a CEO, and he comes down and he exerts executive oversight. But the day-to-day functioning of Russia is left to these district leaders, these governors, and they are supported by mayors in the various towns who then have their own apparatus. There's a huge apparatus of government in Russia that's functioning effectively because everybody remembers what it was. The people that criticize Russia today, look, you could go into Russia today and you can find a village where they're still putting gas lines in. You can find a village that doesn't have sewage. You can find a village that uses well water instead of running water. It's there.

It's a reality. But what you do know is that there's a governor down there who knows that that village is on the list to become gasified. They are working on the infrastructure. They're working on it. And to sit there and pick this, that, and the other thing is wrong. Because the big picture, the Russian people know exactly what's going on. They know that they're improving. And they know who's responsible, Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. And they support him overwhelmingly. I'm laughing because I live in a village that doesn't have gas lines and doesn't have sewage, and we use well water.

So we have leach fields, we have septics, we have natural gas delivered to our homes by truck, and we have our own wells, and we're just very happy with that. When you visited the parts of Russia that Ukraine claims is Ukraine and are now legally parts of Russia, did you interact with any military? And if you did, what did you take away from that, from the human beings with whom you spoke? I did have the opportunity to interact with the military. I will say right up front, the level of interaction that I had desired, which is there were five specific units that I was scheduled to meet with the soldiers and the officers of those units, probably closer to the front line than any reasonable person should be, which is why the Russian government said, no, you're not, you're not going to do that. Um, so I had to meet with them away. So I don't want anybody to come up with the impression that I was somehow on the front line with the Russian troops.

I wasn't, I was in the rear with the gear, uh, but they brought people to me. I met with them. Uh, these are people that, uh, have been involved in the fighting since 2014, Battle of, I keep saying this wrong, Advika, I think it is, or Advika or Avdika. It's the big battle near Donetsk. In October, that unit carrying out assaults lost 3,000 men. And I'm like, you guys got your butts kicked. And he went, no, it's war, man. It was a heavy fight, but we killed 20,000 of them. I'm like, okay. That's the fact. They've redefined drone warfare. If you're not doing drones today,

you're going to die. That's the bottom line. And America doesn't do drones. I'm just telling you right now, if NATO or an American style military went up against the Russians today, they'll be slaughtered because they have no clue what's about to hit them. There's been a revolution in warfare. This is like somebody who grew up in the cavalry saying the cavalry is the king of battle. Yeah, but then you meet the machine gun and then you're no longer the king of battle. And so we have Americans that think, you know, we're going to swamp them with tanks, swamp them with this. No, they're going to swamp you with drones. The Russians are reinventing drone warfare. I spoke with a general who has been pulled out of the front lines and sent to the General Staff Academy for the purpose of capturing these lessons and putting it into formal doctrine

that can be trained at the training level. Talk to me about the culture and ethnic background of the soldiers. Could you say that you saw Christians I saw Muslims and Christians fighting side by side like brothers. They are brothers. They call each other brother. And I saw, you know, Buryats fighting next to Slavs. The Chechens are, you know, are there fighting. This is what people need to understand. When you speak of Russia, most people say, oh, okay, you know, blonde hair, blue eyed, you know, Slavic, etc. No, no, that's Slavs. Russia is a nation of over 130 different nationalities, ethnic groups, all of which are treated with great respect, all of which view themselves as part of the Russian nation. When I was in Chechnya, the Chechens are a separate people, separate language,

separate cultures. They're Muslim, but they all say we're Russian. Now, they don't mean that they're Slavic. They're Russian. They are part of the Russian Federation. And that's what people need to understand when you speak of the Russian Federation, you're speaking about a diverse population that is unified in a common objective. And that objective is to promote the Russian nation, to defend the Russian nation. This is a fascinating conversation, Scott. I want to move into the military sphere. Is Ukraine, militarily speaking, on its last legs? Absolutely. And they admit it themselves. I mean, just today, I believe the State Department and the Department of Defense in the United States had to admit that we're not giving them anything more. There's nothing left to give. And Europe has nothing

left to give. This means that Ukraine right now is using the last of its reserves, the reserve stocks. And when they hit bottom, which is soon, because they're consuming this ammunition in a rapid rate, there's nothing left. And when you have an artillery piece with no ammunition, you have nothing. When you have a tank with no ammunition, you have nothing. When you have men with machine guns and they don't have ammunition, they have nothing. Ukraine is on the verge of having nothing. And this will be a catastrophe for the Ukrainian military because right now they've lost the war already. That's the one thing every Russian told me is Ukraine's lost this war. Now we just have to finish the job. The job is going to become finished that much quicker when Ukraine has absolutely nothing left to fight with.

There's a report this morning. I haven't seen it corroborated, but I've seen it in several sources, that Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, I don't know if he meant it or if he just said it in an offhanded way, said British soldiers are ready to fight side by side with Ukrainian soldiers in Ukraine. First of all, do you have any sources to corroborate or reject that? And secondly, if he did say that, is he out of his mind? He's out of his mind. I mean, the British Army is 76,000 right now. In a couple of years, it's going to be down to 56,000. It's getting smaller, not bigger. The British Army cannot field an armored brigade anymore. An armored brigade,

one. They can't field one. They've got nothing. Zero. Squat. What's he going to go and fight side by side with Ukrainians with? It's stupid. I think the reference is to Britain, they just inked this mutual security pact. But the key aspect to this pact is that it doesn't come into force until after the current fighting is done. So I think what Sunak was saying is, once the pact comes in force, the British will fight side by side with Ukrainians. But since the pact will never come into force because Ukraine's going to cease to exist. Judge, I have to tell you, the one thing that I came away with after talking to these senior political leaders is the Ukrainian state is doomed. The Russians are going to terminate it. Whatever we call Ukraine today will not exist. So any agreement

that's out there right now, it's not worth the paper it's written on, because at the end of the day, whoever signed that won't be in power, and the government that they represented won't be in power. It's going to be something totally different, dictated by the Russians on the Ukrainian side. Do the Russians plan to go to Kiev and westward, or will they be satisfied with the Russian-speaking, Russian cultural provinces in the east, almost all of which are now under their protection? Russia will not allow Ukraine to exist in a way that represents a long-term threat to Russia. So a Ukraine that has a relationship with NATO and the collective west as exists today

will not be allowed to exist. Russia is willing to negotiate the terms of the dissolution of that Ukraine in a way that doesn't require Russia to use military force to achieve that end result. But if the Ukrainians and the collective West insist on not negotiating, not fighting, then Russia will accomplish all of its tasks using military force. And this means that Russia will go all the way to the Polish border. That's my take. I didn't hear that from a Russian. who made it clear that Odessa, Mykolaiv, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kharkov, these four territories that are beyond the four territories that already exist, they're probably going to become Russia by the time this is done, that Russia will never allow Russian-speaking Russians or people who

view themselves as Russian as opposed to Ukrainian to be governed by Ukraine again. But they also will never allow a Ukrainian government that is influenced by Banderist ideology to exist. Russia will destroy the birthplace of Banderism. That means Western Ukraine. The mechanism of destruction will be left up to the Ukrainians. They can negotiate the easy way or there will be the hard way. But at the end of the day, there will be no more statues of Stepan Bandera, no avenues named after Bandera. He will not be a national hero and the Azov movement will be no more statues of Stepan Bandera, no avenues named after Bandera. He will not be a national hero, and the Azov movement will be eradicated from the face of the earth. Before we go to Israel and Gaza, I have to play this clip for you because it's so impressive.

This is Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrovrov number two chris uh just explaining to a reporter from cbs news in a very succinct solid rational way uh the relationship of russia to ukraine and the United States. Anybody who is sincerely interested in justice, including justice being established in the relations between Russia and Ukraine, which would involve, of course, stopping the Western policy of using Ukraine as an instrument of war against Russia, we would be ready to listen.

President Putin repeatedly said that it is not true when somebody is saying that Russia is against negotiations. Actually, Antony Blinken said this in Davos a few days ago. It is not true. Russia was always emphasizing that any serious proposal which would include the discussion of the situation on the ground, of the origin of the situation, and of reaching a solution which would guarantee legitimate national interest of Russia and Ukrainian people, we would be ready to discuss. Now, before you comment on that, here is his opposite number. In Davos last week, Secretary Antony Blinken telling Tom Friedman of the New York Times in front of the Davos crowd, Putin has failed. Putin has already failed in what he set out to do. He set out to erase Ukraine from the map,

to eliminate its independence, to subsume it into Russia. That has failed, and it cannot and will not succeed. Second, Ukraine has not only stood up to the aggression, over the past year it took back more than 50 percent of the territory that had been taken from it in February of 2022. The last year, the last part of the last year has been challenging. But even then, something that got little notice, what Ukraine managed to do in the Black Sea, opening it up, pushing the Russian Navy back and starting to

get grain out to the world. It's been the breadbasket of the world. It's gone back to that as a result of actions it's taken. Sorry to raise your blood pressure. No, Blinken stopped raising my blood pressure a long time ago just because he is the epitome of incompetence. You know, I mean, I guess he and his, you know, his staff had to, you know, spend some time, you know, crafting these words. It's a thematic that he's been repeating over and over again, he and Jake Sullivan, it's the White House theme, but it has no relationship to reality on the ground. And it also avoids the issue that Lavrov has talked about. Russia's ready to finish this. This could be finished today if people were willing to sit down around a table and address

in a responsible manner the issues that Lavrov set forth. Ukraine cannot be a member of NATO. It just isn't going to happen. Once the West accepts that and Ukraine call for, you know, denazification on a scope and scale that probably will occur now. Russia's always been willing to, you know, come up with reasonable terms, so long as the national security of interest of Russia in regards to NATO expansion and using Ukraine as a mechanism to undermine Russia. We would never allow this in the United States. I just want Americans to understand what we are trying to do to Russia. If you flip the script and you had Russia trying to take away California, take away Texas, take away Arizona, man, we would never allow that. We'd say that's against our, we'd go to war.

Right. Oh, wow. Well, guess what the Russians did, guys? Yeah. All right. Switching gears. Since last we spoke about this, it appears the situation in Gaza has become dire, not only for the Palestinian people, but for the IDF as well. They have lost a lot of soldiers, and Prime Minister Netanyahu is under tremendous pressure to do something. General Eisenkot, you may know him or know of him, former commander of the IDF, now retired, in the Israeli Netanyahu war cabinet, went on national television and said, we need a ceasefire, a permanent ceasefire. We need to negotiate for the hostages to come home. And we need new leadership. We need elections within 60 days. Netanyahu must go, whatever his personal fate is, to bed. What is your view on the status of the IDF and its efforts to commit genocide against

the Palestinian people? And do you think that Bibi's stated goals of degrading Hamas and getting the hostages home are incompatible? I mean, Israel and Netanyahu, I understand that Netanyahu's fate was sealed on October 7th. This is supposed to be the security prime minister. This is the man who is going to make Israel safe and make Israel great again and all this kind of stuff. And October 7th, he got whipped by Hamas. Hamas launched what in effect was the greatest military raid in modern history, humiliating the IDF, humiliating the Israeli intelligence services, taking hostages back and then falling back in on prepared defensive positions to achieve strategic goals and objectives, all of which they're achieving.

They're in the process of achieving. Netanyahu then said that victory is defined by the political termination of Hamas, that Hamas will be destroyed as a political entity, and the physical destruction of Hamas as a military entity. And once you establish those goals and objectives, they're unattainable. And then you go into Gaza, and what happens is that Hamas fights the IDF to a standstill, humiliates the IDF, is killing them, you know, death by a thousand cuts. Hamas is stronger today politically than they have ever been. If there were elections amongst the Palestinian people, Hamas would easily secure a victory of not only the presidency, but the parliament. The Palestinian people know that there's only one entity who's actually defending them, speaking of a Palestinian state, and that's Hamas. So Israel hasn't met any of its goals

and its objectives. The world's turned again. Tomorrow we'll get a ruling from the International Court of Justice to find out if Israel will be classified as a genocide state. Everybody who watches what's happening in Gaza knows what the answer is. But now Netanyahu is desperate. He's talking about opening up a northern front against Hezbollah. Hezbollah will not only defeat the IDF, but Hezbollah will occupy northern Israel. This is an inevitable outcome. Israel can't beat Hezbollah. But Netanyahu needs an expansion of the war in order to maintain political viability as a wartime leader. This general has called him out. And I think there's a growing recognition inside Israel that the biggest problem Israel faces today isn't Hamas.

It's Benjamin Netanyahu, and that the only pathway to peace is for Benjamin Netanyahu to be pushed aside and a new government brought in that's capable of thinking along different lines. The fact is Hamas is here to stay, and you've got to learn to deal with them. You can't ignore them. Here's Tony Blinken, the same interview with Tom Friedman. This is even more hand-wringing than when he said Putin has failed. So Tom Friedman of the New York Times asks him at the outset if Jewish lives are worth more than Christian or Muslim lives, and then Blinken goes on from there. One of the things you hear so often from people, given the high civilian casualties in Gaza, is does the United States, do Jewish lives matter more than Palestinian and Muslim lives, Palestinian Christian lives, given the incredible asymmetry in casualties? And I've been asked that.

I want to give you a chance to respond to that. No. Period. For me, I think for so many of us, what we're seeing every single day in Gaza is gut-wrenching. And the suffering we're seeing among innocent men, women, and children breaks my heart. The question is, what is to be done? We've made judgments about how we thought we could be most effective in trying to shape this in ways to get more humanitarian assistance to people,

to get better protections, and minimize civilian casualties. And at every step along the way, not only have we impressed upon Israelis responsibilities to do that, we've seen some progress in areas where absent our engagement, I don't believe it would have happened. I mean, these crocodile tears are a joke. He could stop the war with a phone call. He could stop the slaughter, as Max Blumenthal eloquently pointed out, while we're doing this show, by what he would say, or Biden would say on the phone to Netanyahu. Yeah, the genocide could stop with one phone

call that just said, basically, America will no longer fund you, economically support you, you will lose our political cover in the Security Council if you don't do what we tell you to do from this point on when it comes to the behavior. We provide Israel with the weapons it uses to kill the innocent civilians of Gaza. And it's the innocent civilians, over 28,000 now, who are dead. I think 12,000 or more are children. Blinken has oftentimes said too many civilians have died, and I want to shout at him, what's enough? I mean, what's an acceptable number? Is 5,000 okay for you, Tony? Two? I mean, the answer is one is too many. One is too many. And yet we've allowed the Israelis to slaughter, butcher 28,000 in genocidal behavior

that has been documented and presented to the International Court of Justice. It's not a matter of debate. We know what the Israelis are doing and we are facilitating it. So we are to blame. This is the reality. Tony Blinken is as guilty of the genocide of the Palestinian people as Benjamin Netanyahu. So is Joe Biden. So is every American involved in the provision of weapons and money and political support to Israel. The best thing to say to Israel right now is no, no, no, no more. Israel will say, well, we're a sovereign state. Then we'll say, then you shall be treated as a sovereign state, a sovereign state that it operates in violation of international law. We will sanction you. We will strangle you. And

if you want, we'll blow you off the face of the earth. But the day that you get to continue to slaughter Palestinian civilians in our name is over. But we're not doing that because Tony Blinken has said before that he identifies as a Jew, as a citizen of Israel. He's a Zionist. And everybody in the Biden government apparently is a Zionist too. And we've made it to the point where if we criticize Zionism, we're somehow anti-Semitic. We're not allowed. I mean, what happened to free speech in America?

I mean, I respect people's right to disagree with me. But to criminalize my criticism of the Biden administration's policies towards Israel, to criminalize my ability to call out political Zionism as a force of evil, as opposed to a force of good, to say that, no, no, no, no, that's anti-Semitic and therefore that is a crime. That's not how it's supposed to work in America. The last time I checked, we are in America. Scott, I think we'll end with that. There's so much more to talk about, so much time to make up for. Your friend Alexander was terrific. The translator Pavel was terrific. I know you were

very busy in Russia. I can't thank you enough for all the time you gave us. But welcome home, American. And thanks very much for joining us today, my dear friend. Thanks for having me. Okay. Wow. Another tour de force. His body clock may still be on Moscow time, but his brain is right here. Three o'clock, Max Blumenthal on the latest in Israel and with Netanyahu.

And 4.30, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. Probably very similar analysis to what we just heard. Is the United States ready to start fighting wars in the Middle East? Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.