Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter - Is America truly helping Ukraine_

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

#Ukraine #BidenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This new year, why not let Audible expand your life by listening? Audible CA contains over 890,000 total titles within its current library, including audiobooks, podcasts, and exclusive Audible Originals that'll inspire and motivate you. Tap into your well-being with advice and insight from leading professionals and experts on better health, relationships, career, finance, investing, and more. Maybe you want to kick a bad habit or start a good one. If you're looking to encourage positive change in your life one day and challenge at a time, look no further than Tabitha Brown's I Did a New Thing, 30 Days to Living Free. In the audiobook, Tab shares her own stories and those of others alongside

gentle guidance and encouragement to create these incredible changes for yourself and see what good can come from them. Trust me, listening on Audible can help you reach the goals you set for yourself. Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash wonderyca. That's audible.com slash wonderyca. That's audible.com slash wonderyca. Good afternoon, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, May 26, 2022. It's a little bit after 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

We got a late start because of some technical difficulties, but I see a lot of you lining up ready to listen to another interview with the Judging Freedom superstar of interviewees, Scott Ritter, who really needs no introduction to this audience, but he is, of course, military. He is, of course, a former UN weapon inspector, and he is a clear, consistent, powerful voice on the role of the military in our lives and in the world. Scott, it's a pleasure. Welcome back to Judging Freedom. Well, thank you very much for having me. So the last time you were here was about two weeks ago. Since that time, the attention of the American public has been diverted to two horrific shootings, one in Buffalo, New York, and one unbelievable one yesterday in Ovalde, or two days ago in Ovalde, Texas. But the war continues to go on, or the military action

continues to go on between Ukraine and Russia. What is the state of affairs as we speak today, May 26, 2022? Well, it appears that Russia is on the verge of a huge victory in the Donbass. Don't take my word for it. Ask President Zelensky, who says we're getting beat in Donbass. Ask his advisor, who just came on TV last night and acknowledged that the defeat is going to be massive in scale. The Ukrainians are now claiming that the Russians outnumber them seven to one and that their units can't last on the front line much longer. And it's everything I said it was going to be. The Russians have ground it down. They've achieved major breakthroughs in the very established defenses of the Ukrainians. They're surrounding tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers.

Thousands of others are surrendering. And they're on the verge of accomplishing their phase two objective of liberating the Donbass. All right. What was their phase one objection to rid Zelensky from power and take back the entire country? I don't believe so. Remember, the reason why they call it a special military operation is that it's linked to the specific legal requirements set forth in the Russian justification, which is a preemptive collective self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. And the preemptive is the important part because in order to legally cite preemption, you have to say that there is an imminent threat that requires this preemption

action. And what would Putin say was that imminent threat? No, he has said it. It's not what he said. He said it was the accumulation of 100,000 of Ukraine's best forces in eastern Ukraine who were on the verge of launching their own preemptive attack into Donbass to recapture Lugansk and Donetsk. Okay. Tell us about Donbass, not its history and not its politics, but its economy and its industrial base, stated differently, has it been destroyed in order to liberate it? Well, no. I mean, remember that before this liberation activity under the Special Military Operation occurred, Donbass had been subjected to eight years of horrific warfare between the Ukrainian

army, their Azov Nazi allies, and the two militias, the Donetsk militia and the Lugansk militia. But, you know, most of the destruction took place on the line of contact. So there was artillery fire, the towns and cities and villages and farms there were destroyed. But in the depth of the Russian, ethnic Russian-held parts, you know, there are coal mines, there are manufacturing capabilities, et cetera, that are untouched. They're still viable. They're still functioning. Now, as Russia breaks through the extensive defensive lines, we could

see fighting spill over into untouched industrial areas. But more important in this day and age, when we talk about food shortages, understand that the fighting that's taking place is preventing farmers from sowing their fields. And so it's not just coal that's not getting mined or steel that's not getting forged. It's wheat that's not being sowed. So when the harvest time comes, there's not going to be anything coming out of the ground. All right. Is this the bread basket of Ukraine, Donbass, much as Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe, Donbass is the breadbasket of Ukraine. Do I have that right? Donbass is primarily the, it's more important towards industry, but there is some agriculture there.

There's agriculture further south in Kherson. But if this fighting breaks through and gets into, say, the central part of Ukraine, That's where the great fields are, and this is what would be disrupted by any major combat. All right. Since the last time you were here, Judging Freedom spoke to Matthew Van Dyke. Matt is, in the old days, you'd call him a soldier of fortune. Today, he's the head of, you'd call him a soldier of fortune. Today he refers to himself as the head of a group called Sons of Liberty International. His group, they're all ex-military. They're armed, but they don't fight, according to him.

According to him, they train Ukrainian civilians and military in the use of American military equipment. We spoke to him from what he said was an apartment that his corporation had leased in Kiev. I want to run the first clip. It's maybe 40, 45 seconds long. You'll hear what he said, and then you can tell me what you think. In a lot of ways, it's looking a lot more like World War I than World War III over here. People are digging trenches. There's a lot of artillery exchanges, even soldiers coming back with trench foot. And it's a war of attrition of equipment and personnel that will grind on perhaps for years. But in the end, really everything is pointing to a Ukrainian victory here over time. In the end, everything is pointing to a Ukrainian victory here. Now,

he has a vested interest in saying that. His corporation is non-profit. I don't know where they get their money from, but they're spending a lot of money. If he were here, how would you respond to him, Scott? Well, I'd start off by saying, with all due respect, you're a filmmaker, not a soldier. So stay in your lane lane and i think he is staying in his lane i think what he's doing you know as a he's a documentary filmmaker and his job is to um you know create a story through visual um work to to to create a narrative um uh in in that narrative is designed to entertain. That narrative is designed to, you know, compel. It's not necessarily designed to reflect the truth.

I think that what we're looking at here is a world-class scam. Who is he training? What is his qualifications to train him? What are the qualifications of the people he's brought on? I mean, in stuff I've read, the only qualified person I see is a former Marine Corps captain who in 2004 trained the Iraqi army to take on an insurgency in Iraq. And the captain is preparing curriculum, apparently, that's being sent to the Sons of Liberty so they can train these civilians. I don't know what the captain's qualifications are. I won't challenge them here because I don't know him and I don't want to impugn his character.

But I will say that whatever he was doing in Iraq has absolutely no relationship with what's going on in Ukraine today. Training Iraqi soldiers to fight insurgents is a world away from training Iraqi civilians or soldiers to fight one of the world's most lethal modern militaries. You said Iraqi. You mean Ukraine? No, no, no. This captain who's writing the curriculum for Sons of Liberty. Ah, okay. The captain's background, in your view, does not equip him well to provide whatever services Matt Van Dyke says he's providing. Correct.

And now we'll take it a step further. You know, I was a firefighter here in New York for a while, a volunteer firefighter. But in order to train my firefighters, I had to be certified at the national level as a firefighter instructor one. That means that I could take curriculum prepared by others and train from it. If I wanted to prepare my own curriculum, I had to go get trained as a firefighter instructor, too. And that's a very different course. I'm telling you right now, none of the people working on the ground with Mr. Van Dyke are qualified as a firefighter instructor, one. Which means even if the captain's writing brilliant curriculum, these guys are not qualified to instruct it.

And they're darn sure not qualified to make up their own thing so okay I love you when you're passionate and so do our viewers one more clip from Matt Van Dyke Scott okay say that Russia is not destined to win the war and uh by that argument that would just mean that we capitulate just allowing any aggressor around the world, particularly ones who have nuclear weapons, to do what they want. And us saying that we're not going to get involved because we want nations to be conquered, we want democracies to fall, because the larger ideals of people living free are less important than the body count. All right. Well, this is the political moral argument, which you have pretty much demolished. He is arguing that he's actually helping democracy and freedom. You and Colonel McGregor and Phil Giraldi, but mainly you, have demonstrated rather conclusively that they're doing the opposite. They're extending a war needlessly and causing needless deaths of innocent civilians as well as military.

Do I have that right? Yes. Look, again, I don't know anything about this guy, and I don't want to impugn his character, but I will say within the limited with the four corners of the topic we're discussing now he's a charlatan he's a fraud um and frankly speaking he's getting people killed if he is indeed training anybody this sounds to me more like a money-making scheme um where he is using a cause which he has uh and you saw in that last clip, he, you know, the documentary filmmaker in him is now shaping a narrative that makes it attractive to people in the United States who have fallen for the argument that what's going on in Ukraine is the defense of democracy against autocracy, et cetera.

And he's raising money this way. But this is not, he's not qualified to train. None of his people are qualified to train. And I doubt that he's actually training anybody. Because I'll say this, the Ukrainians, for all of their faults, aren't suicidal. They're not stupid. And they're better trained than anybody he has on their staff already. They don't need to bring in a bunch of American hucksters, shysters,

fraudsters to come in who are carrying out a scheme to raise money in America to come in and train their troops who are going to be involved in life and death decision on the battlefield. They have their own people to do this. Since you were last here, President Biden has signed legislation releasing $40 billion, with a B, dollars worth of American military equipment, probably already there, either in the hands of NATO or guarded by the Poles, to the Ukrainians. The number is extraordinary. The number is larger than the entire $40 billion. That's actually $53 if you add the two, the $13 and the $40. That number of $53 billion is larger than the entire annual military budget of Russia, and it's larger given the Ukrainians some cause for hope? Or has all of it wasted American dollars? Well, money borrowed in the name of the taxpayers since the government is broke. Well, let's start by the numbers because I've cited the same numbers.

They're accurate numbers. And the intent of putting those numbers out is pure. But there are people who will attack anything. And the first thing people are going to say is, yeah, but at that $40 billion, only $6 billion is actually for military hardware. So when you make a comparison between the $40 billion and the Russian military budget, it's comparing apples and oranges. No, it's not. Before you make such claims, people who criticize you, me, and others who cite these numbers, do your own research. The Russian defense budget for annual

is $65 billion. But that portion which is used for operations and weapons, the national security aspect, is only $43 billion. And when you parse out research and development, nuclear weapons, the salaries, et cetera, you're left with the Russians spending on an annual basis between $5 and $6 billion to acquire new weaponry, which is exactly the amount that's contained in the $40 billion budget that Biden just passed. So in four months, we've given the Ukrainians the equivalent of what Russia spends in one year. That's a statement of fact. Now, does this give Ukrainians hope? Hope is a funny thing. It's based upon perception, not reality. So only the Ukrainians can answer that question. Is hope derived from a real impact on the battlefield? We see right now that Ukraine

is losing. So the answer is no. This weaponry is not changing the ultimate outcome on the battle in eastern Ukraine. However, remember Lloyd Austin, when he spoke about supporting the U.S. support for Ukraine, didn't speak in terms of Ukraine winning a victory. He spoke in terms of the United States achieving a strategic victory by bleeding Russia dry. And some of these weapons have been responsible for the deaths of many, many Russians. And this is, you know, this is the important thing, because Russia is taking casualties because of the massive infusion of weaponry provided by the West. These casualties will not change the outcome, but it does change the larger equation. of Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian Quds Force leader, whom we accused of providing assistance to Iraqi insurgents that killed five or 600 Americans. We called him a criminal. We said he had to die. We assassinated him. Well, we're doing the exact same thing to Russia that Qasem

Soleimani did to us, but on a larger scale. So the hypocrisy reeks. One of our more passionate emailers, and whenever you're on, we get a lot of passionate emails, asked me to ask you if you know about the shooting down of a Ukrainian plane full of Western and American military gear. Is this a phenomenon or does this happen all the time? No, since the war began, I think this is the second time that a Ukrainian military transport has been trying to fly into Odessa with military equipment and has been shot down by the Russians. But what this raises is just an important thing. We need to speak about reality, not what we think things are, what we want them to be. You know, people talk about Russia having turned Ukraine into a no-fly zone. And increasingly, if Ukraine flies, they die. But just yesterday, Ukraine flew 40 or 30 sorties,

combat sorties, from four airfields that are still operating in central Ukraine. These included combat aircraft. So the Ukrainians are still in the fight. They're not winning the fight. But I think we need to be cautious to understand that just because Russia is on the verge of achieving important victories on the front line, it doesn't mean that the Ukrainians are rolling over and playing dead. And the infusion of $6 billion worth of weaponry makes whatever Ukrainian force survives that much more lethal. As far as you know, is anybody telling Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, or the president, more or less what you're telling us? Are they hearing this side of things? Because if they're not, and if you're right, and I believe you, as do all of the thousands of people watching us now,

then the government's ideology, its passion for globalism, has blinded it to reality. Is that fair? No, this is fair. Look, we know that the U.S. intelligence community runs at a deficit of the administration they serve, as opposed to informing the administration about ground truth and letting the administration adjust policy. Let me stop you for a second. The intelligence community tells the president and his people what they think he wants to hear, even if it's not the truth as they perceive it. Is that what you're saying? I can't speak to what they say behind closed doors because I don't know. I'm not there.

Maybe behind closed doors, they're giving them an ice cold dash of reality. But when they testify before the United States Congress, which is in itself an inherently political act, they are saying things that support, not contradict, the policy of the Biden administration. And in this case, when the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency speaks about the failures of Russia and the successes of Ukraine, he's saying that because that is the message that's needed to be heard by Congress to sign off on $40 billion. You can't come in and tell them the truth that everything you're sending to Ukraine is going to end up in the hands of the Russians sooner rather than later. So what about the globalists in Western Europe,

Chancellor of Germany, the President of France, and their colleagues in the American State Department? They may be guided by ideology, but they're not stupid. They're not blind. Do they know that they're losing this thing? Do they know that their stated goal, and as you told us, it was crazy to state this, of degrading Russia and perhaps even eliminating Putin will not be achieved in this military conflagration, no matter how much money the federal government spends there. Remember, Europe is governed by democratically elected politicians, so they have to be very careful about reversing course, because no politician does well when they have to explain

why they bought into one policy and now they're changing course. But we see hints. I'll give you the biggest hint. A gentleman named Burrell, who's the head of the foreign, he's the chief diplomat for the European Union, just came out and said something that was amazing. He said NATO, Europe, Europe as a whole cannot stand up to Russia. Russia will defeat us militarily in a conventional fight, which is what I've been saying all along, that NATO is a joke. And he's pretty much acknowledging it. The reason why he's saying this after starting this out by saying that NATO is strong, Russia will be beaten by the Ukrainians, NATO will stand firm, is because he bought into this notion that Russia

was going to lose. The reality is he's getting the same briefings that hopefully the president is. Russia is not only not going to lose, they're winning in a big way. And if NATO and the United States compel Russia to mobilize to finish the job because we've breathed false hope into Ukraine to continue a fight they will never win, then we increase the likelihood of a Russian-NATO fight that Russia will win hands down. And Burrell saying, we maybe need to rethink our entire approach here because we're not winning. And if Burrell's saying that, you know it's being said in various national capitals in Europe. Scott Ritter, no matter what we talk about, it's always a pleasure.

Your observations and your candor are refreshing. And though they keep us up a week at night, they give us comfort that we see through your eyes what's going on. Thank you very much. Have a great holiday weekend. Thank you. You too. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.