Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter: How Long Will Ukraine Last?

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

Scott Ritter: How Long Will Ukraine Last?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resolve 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. so so Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, April 4th, 2024. Scott Ritter joins us now. Scott, a pleasure, my dear friend. I do want to spend a fair amount of time with you on what is going on in Ukraine and the craziness behind the efforts of the Republicans in the House and the international community in Europe to shore up this country that's on its last leg. But before we do, I have to address the recent events in the Middle East.

The Israeli military intentionally targeted food workers and killed seven of them. What is your understanding of the facts in which this happened from which the prime minister of Israel says it was an accident and the head of the food workers group, an internationally recognized Spanish-American dual citizenship chef named Jose Andres says we were targeted. Yeah, I think, first of all, we need to understand that even the Israelis can't get their lives in order.

They've had to, because it was a deliberate target. I'm just telling you as a target here, somebody who's done this in war, there was nothing accidental about it. It can't be an accident. The decision chain that's involved, the communication between intelligence, the operational planners, and the weapon systems doesn't allow for an accident. This isn't somebody on guard duty who's a little tired, sees a movement, fires a shot, and oops, you accidentally killed somebody. This is a moving target that wasn't targeted once, but three separate times, which meant that there was the goal and objective of killing everybody that was in these vehicles involved. say now is bad intelligence, that they believed that this organization that provides food to Palestinians, who, by the way, cleared their route in advance with the Israelis. They said, this is the route we're driving. The Israelis went, good. They said, these are the vehicles

we'll be having. The Israelis said, good. These are how the vehicles are marked. The Israelis said, good. And this is the timeframe that we're going to be going on. And the Israelis said, good. And these guys complied with everything they said they were going to do. But the Israelis now claim that they believed that these guys picked up a senior Hamas figure at a warehouse that they began their journey from, and that this was really an effort to target that Hamas figure. And there was, oops, we were wrong. They didn't. That's the mistake they're talking about. But this was no accident. This was targeted assassination of everybody in those vehicles because they didn't know which ones were the supposed Hamas figure and who were

the people who are now corrupted. They're no longer innocent because they've been facilitating the travel of Hamas. This is absurd. The three security personnel that were hired by this organization were all very experienced professionals whose job it is. And I don't work with their particular company, but I have a very good friend who runs a similar company that does similar security work in Gaza for organizations such as this. These guys, their number one priority is the security of the people they're on. They go overboard to ensure that there is no conflict of interest, that there is no way anybody can say you're doing something that allows you to be stripped of your veil of protection. And so it's impossible to come up, impossible to come up with a situation that says these professionals would have allowed anybody to bring a Hamas person in, because that

immediately makes you a viable target. So it didn't happen. We know it didn't happen because of the professionalism and the past track record. Plus, this organization is not an organization that has a track record, a history of working with Hamas. They feed the Palestinian people. Everybody knows this. This was part of an overall Israeli strategy to make it impossible for aid workers to operate in Gaza. This was deliberate murder by the Israelis. They knew there was no Hamas person. Why isn't somebody challenging them saying, give us the intelligence? How do you know that? Where'd you get that from? Nobody's going to do that. The Israelis have done their investigation and the prime minister has taken responsibility. But I'm telling you right now, this is part and parcel of a deliberate action on the part of the Israelis to make it impossible

for foreign aid workers to operate in Gaza. One of the first things that happened after this is that aid ships that were bringing aid in to Gaza turned around because it's unsafe. That is the Israeli objective. That's what happened here. This is murder, murder by the Israelis. And here's the thing, Judge, and I hate to say this because I don't like going down this route, but this is the truth. Israel's murdered 33,000 Palestinians. Because they're brown, they're just numbers. Weep about the children. We weep about the women. But they're brown. They just killed seven the women we breathe but they're brown they're brown they just killed seven white people and now they're in trouble i mean and and again they should be

in trouble but i just want the audience to reflect on that israel is in trouble for killing seven white people not for killing 33 000 brown people that's right Just keep that in mind. The same food outfit, the World Central Kitchen, also has been feeding Israelis as well. Here's the chef, this world-renowned chef, founder and owner,

Jose Andres, in a clip that's gone viral in the past 24 hours. What I know is that we were targeted deliberately, nonstop, until everybody was dead in this convoy. This happened over more than 1.5, 1.8 kilometers. So this was not just a bad luck situation where, oops, we dropped the bomb in the wrong place or no.

This was over 1.5, 1.8 kilometers with a very defined humanitarian convoy that had signs in the top, in the roof. That cannot be the role of an army. That cannot be the role of an army that has hundreds of drones above Gaza in any single moment. The humanitarians and civilians should never be paying the consequences of war. This is a basic principle of humanity. At the time, this looks like it's not a war against the regime anymore.

Seems this is a war against humanity itself. It's an internationally recognized apolitical person with a profound Scott Ritter-like statement. This is a war against humanity itself. I want to play another view of this for you. This person has been a friend of mine for many years, and I've been on his show, even though we rarely agree on anything. I never thought I'd be running this clip, but he put his finger right on the mark when he referred to World Central Kitchen as the SEAL Team DoorDash. Only Stephen Colbert could use that language, but listen to the passion and what he had to say last night. Now, how could something like this happen? Despite the fact that the World Central Kitchen

coordinated their movements with the Israeli military and the team was leaving a warehouse in central Gaza after unloading shipments of food, they were hit by multiple precision Israeli drone strikes. They were riding in three vehicles, including two armored cars carrying the World Central Kitchen logo on the roof. In the op-ed, Jose makes it clear that World Central Kitchen doesn't take sides. Their work is based on the simple belief that food is a universal human right. It is not conditional on being good or bad, rich or poor, left or right. We do not ask what religion you belong to.

We just ask how many meals you need. And they walk the walk. So far, in this conflict, World Central Kitchen has delivered 1.75 million hot meals in Israel and 43 million meals in Gaza. That. I mean, they get in there.

They get in there. They get in there with the food, and they do the job. They're like SEAL Team DoorDash. You got an unfolding human tragedy and an organization that's just trying to do good. I mean, they literally made a documentary

about WCK called We Feed People. Welcome. They have been attacked by the IDF and Hamas has hauled members of their team in for interrogation. So whatever you think should happen in Israel and Gaza, I hope we can all agree that people should be allowed to eat. And if you would like to make a donation that would go toward the peaceful, nonpartisan enterprise of allowing humans to have their most basic needs met, please think about donating to World Central Kitchen by going to this QR code right there and do something radical. Feed people. You know, Scott, you made a point that no one else that that I've heard has made before, and that is the comparison of the murder of 33,000 brown civilians as opposed to seven white civilians. What do you think the international

reaction to this will be? And do you think the international reaction is based not on slaughter, but on race? Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. WGU is an online accredited university that specializes in personalized learning. With courses available 24-7 and monthly start dates, you can earn your degree on your schedule. You may even be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material you know. Make 2025 the year you focus on your future. Learn more at WGU dot edu. Well, first of all, I don't I don't think any any international reaction is sustainable.

Israel's been killing people, brown people, white people for forever. They ran a bulldozer over Rachel Corey. They've made it a habit of shooting the press, whether it's in Lebanon, in Gaza, in the West Bank. organizations from making existence sustainable on the part of those who have been targeted by Israel as enemies. So the WCK, what they're doing, feeding people. I mean, it's an honorable thing, feeding people. Israel doesn't want these people fed. Israel doesn't want them fed because to feed them allows them to live. And if they're living, they are staying there. Israel is seeking the depopulation of Gaza. They're trying to drive the Palestinians out. They're trying to make life untenable for the Palestinians. And one of the ways you do that is to make the organizations that are making life sustainable go away. And so they killed them. This

is murder, straight up murder. We're talking about today because we have a very famous white chef who's moaning the death, bemoaning the deaths, rightfully so, of, I think there might have been some Palestinians that number, but at least five, I think it's three and three, maybe six white people. But the point is, tomorrow, there will be another. Iran is going to bomb a site in Israel, and we'll be talking about that, and suddenly we won't care about this anymore. We don't care. Israel has been committing atrocity after atrocity after atrocity. Why don't we care when a mother waving a white flag, taking her little child, about a toddler, about four years old, across the street is deliberately shot by an Israeli sniper, left to die. The child is

now without parents. Why didn't we care? We didn't care when the girl got on the phone and begged for somebody to come and help her as the tank approached that would kill her. We didn't care then. We care for a moment because we pretend to be human. We pretend to have emotions, but the next day it's gone. We're not talking about them anymore. We won't be talking about these aid workers this time next week because another tragedy would come up. Because at the end of the day, Israel has overwhelmed us with atrocities.

We are in the moment where we are saturated with so much violence, so much death, so much destruction that we become immune to it. We have momentary moments of emotion, momentary moments of recognition that something awful has happened, but it just doesn't stop. So we can't reflect on it. We don't have the time to dig in and think in depth about what Israel is doing because they just keep doing it no matter what. I think you're right. I think you're 100% on the mark. I want to transition to the Israeli destruction of the Iranian consulate adjacent to the Iranian embassy in the sovereign territory of Iran, which is in downtown Damascus, in violation of all

international standards to kill diplomats. In this case, they killed two Iranian generals, five other Iranian people, a total of 54 deaths between people in the building and outside the building. They haven't formally claimed responsibility, but it's obvious it was them. Defense Minister Gallant even hinted that this happened, and apparently they alerted the U.S. ahead of time. Your take on this, and what international reaction or Iranian reaction is likely to come about? I'll start by just trying to paint it so people understand what happened here. If you remember the movie Patton, because I bring up the movie because more people have seen the movie Patton. I remember it well, and I've seen it many, many times, and I can recite certain lines for you.

For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph. But it's not about me. It's about you. Go ahead. No, no, no. But, A, it's a good movie, and these are lines worthy of reciting. No, but if you recall at the end of the North African campaign, there's a famous bathroom scene where Patton goes in, he draws a map on, he blows on the mirror,

draws a map about what he wants done. But the point is that the allies came together, all the heads, the head of the strategic air forces, the British, the Americans, the Navy, they were all there to plan the next phase of the campaign. And this was a critical meeting. Could you imagine as all those people were together, a bomb went off and killed them? What that would have done. It doesn't mean that the war is over, but now we have to replace these people who are experts, who are experienced, who have the plan in place, who know where they want to go, and they're gone now. That's what happened in Syria. The Iranians had brought together the brain trust, the guys in the Quds Force that were managing this campaign

against Israel and the United States to some extent. This was the guy who oversaw the whole operation in the Middle East. He's the guy with experience managing Hezbollah problem. So he has intimate connections with Nasrallah and Hezbollah. He's also underneath him as the guy who's running the resupply of Hamas. People keep saying Hamas is going to run out of ammunition. No, they're not because al-Quds has been supplying them. There was an intercepted shipment. You saw all the weapons in the shipment. If you're intercepting one, you know that many others have gotten through. So even though Israel claims to have total control of Gaza and all this stuff, weapons are coming in, which means Hamas will never be defeated because they will continuously be resupplied. The guy who did that, he was there

at the meeting. The guy who is the one giving the pro-Iranian Iraqi militias and Syrian militias the weapons that they're using, not only to attack American bases. Remember, we had a conversation a little while ago about the attack on Al-Tanf. They're also the ones who are now successfully striking Israeli targets in Haifa, in Elliot, and other locations. That guy was there, and the guy who's responsible for overseeing the Houthi campaign, the campaign against the ships, against Israel. This campaign, which has inflicted horrific economic harm on Israel, crippling Israel. He was there. They were planning the next phase, how to ratchet this up, how to bring more harm

to Israel and how to further inconvenience the United States. This was that equivalent, that meeting in the movie Patton for the next phase of the campaign. They're gone. Israel got the intelligence that they were there and they made the decision. They did the risk reward calculus and they said, yeah, we're going to get hit hard because this is diplomatically inviolable. Law says we can't strike it. We don't necessarily want to strike it because that exposes our diplomatic facilities abroad to similar actions. But this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to take out the command central of the organization that is defeating us because Israel is losing this war. They're losing it. They're not going to win it. And the people that are making them lose it are the people that are now gathered there in Damascus. Israel took them out. That was the decision they made. So now there's going to be a retaliation. And they have to retaliate. But remember, Iran's not in the let's go to war with Israel mode.

The guys I was talking about are the proxy leaders of the axis of resistance that is defeating Israel. Why would Iran say, well, this thing that's working so well, let's do away with it and go into direct conflict with Israel, where it may not end up so good for us. We may not lose, but our economy is going to suffer. This is a moment when Iran has made peace with Saudi Arabia. They're looking to join BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. They're pivoting east in terms of economic revitalization. Why do they want to throw it all away with a direct war with Israel? So I think Iran is going to not only reconstitute this capability, they have deputies out there,

they have people who they'll promote, but they're going to double down now. What the Israelis have done is slit their own throat, because there may have been a discussion in Iran about not giving the pro-Iranian militias in Iraq precision guided ballistic missiles because that's an escalation. That discussion's over. They're going to get it, which means these guys are going to fire weapons against Americans and Israelis. They're going to start killing a lot of people. They're going to give the Houthi more weapons. They're going to double down on the kind of weapons they're going to be sending Hamas in the resupply, and they're going to reconfigure Hezbollah with even more capability. And that's what they're going to do in the long term is just ratchet up that pressure. All the decisions that they were debating, do we want to escalate? Do we

want to go in this direction? That question has been resolved. They're going to escalate using these practices. But there will also have to be a strike that assuages the Revolutionary Guard command itself. You know, they lost Qasem Soleimani. Now they've lost these guys. And they're saying we need, you know, first of all, if we don't do anything, we lose all deterrence value, meaning that it becomes open season on al-Quds. So what they have to do is set the deterrence value. You did this, this is the price you're going to pay. And I think they have pretty much told the United States, knowing that that answer would go to Israel, that there will be a price to pay and it will be a significant price outrage amongst the peoples in Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and it must be getting worse and worse. And this has got to be, is this the straw that breaks the camel's back?

No. Look, unfortunately, the Arab countries that surround Palestine have spent entire lifetimes betraying the Palestinian cause, and they're still not on the Palestinian side. I mean, that's just a tragic reality. Egypt is not pro-Palestinian. Syria is neutral. Jordan is not pro-Palestinian. Saudi Arabia is definitely not pro-Palestinian. And so I don't think this breaks it. Because remember, these are primarily Sunni countries. Iran is Shia. And for years, the United States has been promoting the Shia crescent as the greatest threat to the Sunni world and trying

to build a Sunni alliance. China has started to break that apart by having the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. But we're still a long way before these people are willing to align themselves with the axis of resistance to confront Israel. So we're not there yet. This is still going to be an Iranian response. And I think it's going to be a significant response that we'll be talking about this time next week. But there still must be outrage in that part of the world over the slaughter in Gaza. Amongst the people, yes. And that's the Arab street, so to speak.

And this is the real danger that we're in. The king of Jordan is a Hashemite. He's a Saudi, even though he calls himself Jordanian. The Hashemite family is a Saudi family that was given Jordan. They were given Iraq, Iraq too by the British after World War I. The Iraqis overthrew the Hashemite king, killed him, his family, and solved that problem. But the king in Jordan is still there. But he's very much a minority who is not loved by the Jordanian people. And he understands that if he sits back and continues to do nothing to

acquiesce to Israel, because he has sold out to Israel a long time ago. He's in the pocket of Israel and the United States. But he also understands that if the street turns against him, he goes the way of the Hashemites of Iraq. The Egyptians are facing a similar problem. When you lose the Egyptian people and they go to the streets, you tend not to fare well. The Saudis are worried about that. So you're going to see a lot of machinations in terms of statements, posturing, et cetera, to assuage the people. But at some point in time, there will be a breaking point.

And how these respective Arab countries manage that breaking point will be decisive. Because if they manage it wrong one way, they get overthrown. In order to prevent being overthrown, they might have to go hard intervention, which means now direct confrontation with Israel and indirectly the United States. So this Arab street, this sentiment among the people is a very important factor in here. I need to pick your brain for a few minutes on Ukraine. And I will start by raising your blood pressure and asking Chris to play cut number eight. Ukraine will become a member of NATO. Our purpose at the summit is to help build a bridge to that membership and to create a clear pathway for Ukraine moving forward.

We've done a lot of work on that over the last couple of days here in Brussels, a lot more work to be done between now and the summit but we will see i think in the summit uh very strong support for ukraine going forward and its relationship with with nato person with secretary blinken as the ukraine foreign minister is he out of his mind to make a statement like that yeah the first thing is i, not to be too facetious here, but maybe we can call the bridge that he's talking about building the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Because it's going to suffer the same fate. Go down and never get rebuilt.

So the stupidity of this. I also thought that maybe I was watching sort of a take of a Seinfeld episode. You know, Seinfeld used to do the opposite day thing. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, this is opposite day. So everything that Blinken says is the opposite of what reality is. Because he also did a similar take where he said, the Russians have lost this war. The Russian army is weaker. The Ukrainians are stronger than ever before. Look, we're at a point right now where Blinken has no, nothing he says is based on reality, which shows you how far out of touch American policy is right now. We're in panic mode. We simply don't know what to do. So we do what we do best in those situations, which is to stand there and just speak

total, utter nonsense. The good news here is Russia doesn't care. Russia has stopped caring about what Tony Blinken says a long time ago. Ukraine is in the process of being erased as a nation. I mean, we're at the point now where Russia has gone beyond the point where they're willing to sit down and talk about preserving some aspect of Ukraine. Russia is at the point now where Russia has gone beyond the point where they're willing to sit down and talk about, you know, preserving some aspect of Ukraine. Russia is at the point where they're saying this nation that NATO is talking about bringing in, the European Union is talking about, will disappear. There will be no Ukraine. Kuleba will not only be out of a job in the not so distant future, but he'll be out of a nation. He'll be a man without a home because Ukraine, as we currently understand it, will not exist when this is done.

What will be accomplished by, and this may be why they're in Brussels, the proposed loan? Who would lend money to an entity that you know is more likely than not to exist a year from now. But the EU is planning on lending 100 billion euros to Ukraine. Now, I don't know if that's cash. I don't know if it's securities. I don't know if it's the equivalent in equipment. I don't know if the loan is going to come all at once. At one point, they said it will be $25 billion a year. What good can possibly come from that other than more Ukraine deaths of young people? Well, the interesting part is that while the European Union is talking about loaning this, listen to Kaleba. What, you're going to make us pay interest?

We have to pay it back? We don't want that. I mean, it's amazing the hubris of the Ukrainians. I think what the Europeans are doing is setting in motion a process designed to motivate the U.S. Congress to step in and say, we'll do one better. We're going to give you a loan. There'll be zero interest. You heard Lindsey Graham talk about this. Zero interest. And we understand you'll never have to pay it back. And I think that's what the Europeans are doing. They're trying to kickstart the American Congress to get such a loan package in. But again, I just want to, as an American, I take umbrage at that. What, you're going to give the Ukrainians tens of billions of dollars of interest-free loans that they don't have to pay back. But if

I want to send my kid to college, I got to take out a loan that you're going to charge me 25 to 32 percent and I have to pay it back. I can't declare bankruptcy and make this debt go away. Thanks to Joe Biden. I think that this is a politically untenable, you know, solution. It's one that will, I would hope, generate outrage amongst the American people to the extent that it becomes politically untenable. We shouldn't be giving money to Ukraine at this point in time. We should be convincing the Ukrainians to back off. This is like saying that you want to help somebody with

a drug addiction. Oh, by the way, here's five kilos of cocaine. Go ahead and snort away. Giving Ukraine money at this point, you're throwing money away because Ukraine has lost this war. They're not going to win this war. There's nothing we can do to prevent that. But you're just sustaining the suffering. The money that Speaker Johnson, Mike Johnson, is now negotiating to give away, doesn't most of that stay here? Doesn't most of that go directly to Raytheon and Honeywell and whoever's building this hardware? It doesn't even go to Ukraine, as I understand. Well, that's the argument that

they're making. And that's true. The money, a lot of this money is meant not to give Ukraine weapons. Again, the idea, just think about this, people. Ukraine needs weapons. Ukraine needs this. So we're going to give them a package, but 60% of it doesn't go to the military industrial complex so that they can continue to make donations to the members of Congress who voted in favor of this. That's exactly what this is. Look, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about this back in 1961 in his farewell address about the military industrial congressional complex. And he said, basically, we created the system after the Second World War where we didn't want to go back into recession. We had a healthy economy, but the health of the economy was predicated on continuing this defense warlike type spending, which means that we have to be forever in search of enemies to justify this level of spending.

And then Congress takes advantage of this to say that we're going to spread load the largesse of this so that instead of having a single airplane factory where everything's done right there, the plane gets cranked out, we spread it all over the place, increasing the costs so that engines are produced here, electronics are produced here, airframes are assembled here, et cetera. And we do that so that no member of Congress will ever vote against the defense budget because to vote against them votes against jobs programs because this has become a jobs program. Look, America, if we have to, if our economic health is predicated on the need for Ukrainians to die, this is not a good thing. Okay. What we're saying is in order for us to justify jobs in America, we have to sustain a conflict where hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have already died and hundreds of thousands more will be dead before this over.

That makes America literally the worst nation in the world and populated by the worst people in the world because we can only exist, we can only have economic health by allowing others to die. Come on, guys, we got to do better than this. Scott, you're on a tear. Thank you very much. I really hit you with a lot. Your analysis of Gaza, your analysis of the murder of the, of the seven world food folks and your analysis, which I had not heard before, uh, of what the Israelis did and why they did it to that, uh, consulate and the likely response spot on top of the line and deeply appreciated my dear friend. Thank you. Thank you as always for the time you spend with us. We'll look forward to seeing you again next week. Thank you. All the best.

Coming up later today at three o'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer, and at four o'clock, the inimitable Max Blumenthal. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. channel for judging freedom. Thank you.