Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter: Israeli Slaughter Serves No Meaningful Military Purpose.

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

Scott Ritter: Israeli Slaughter Serves No Meaningful Military Purpose.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, December 12th, 2023. Scott Ritter is with us. How dangerous is the Israeli policy of leveling Gaza to the United States? But first this. Justin Faltano here. I love being a spokesperson for causes that I believe in, and one of them is the soundness of money. We don't have that anymore. The markets are casinos. The Fed is printing cash like it's going out of style. What is the government doing to my money? What is it doing to your money? Over $34 trillion in government debt, and that number goes up with every tick of a clock. The cost of living is unsustainable, and the cost of everything from eggs to bread is going through the roof no matter what the White House tells you. You can no longer trust the government or Wall Street or the bank. So how do you save now and for the future? Do what I did. Do your research. When I did my research, it led me to gold and silver, and that led me to Lear Capital,

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Scott, welcome here, my dear friend. Thank you for your time and your analysis. How isolated has the United States of America become diplomatically from other countries due to the steadfast support of Israel and supplying it of the munitions with which it is demolishing the Gaza Strip? Look, the one thing the United States has consistently done over the years, and it doesn't matter who the president is, is market ourselves as the exceptional nation, exceptional in terms of our principles, our values, and that we at least portend to have policies that reflect these principles and values. Now, I know there's a lot of people out there right now rolling their eyes, and I'm not going to sit here and say that just because we say it's so,

it's so. We know it's not, but at least we pretend to be that. At least we try to make the acting believable. On Israel, it's just 100% unbelievable. We are violating everything we stand for in backing Israel. This is just open genocide that's taking place against the Palestinian people. It is so flagrant and so condemnable that the entire world has turned against us. We vetoed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Security Council that was prompted by a once-in-a-lifetime intervention by a Secretary General on behalf of the Palestinian people, and we vetoed it. And now what we're seeing is that the General Assembly of the United Nations is using a very rarely used provision, Article 377,, because the Security Council has failed to do

its job, the General Assembly is taking up this issue. And there may be a case where the General Assembly will authorize the use of force to terminate this conflict and to deliberate. Now, it's non-binding. So just because the General Assembly votes in favor of it doesn't mean anybody's going to do anything. And the fact that doing something means going against the United States makes it unlikely. But what I'm trying to say is that we are in uncharted territory here where America truly is the bad guy in the world and recognized as such because of what we are doing with Israel. Israel is responsible for destroying whatever was left of America's honor and integrity. We are now linked with Israel in terms of implementing policies that are, by definition, war crimes. How culpable is the Biden administration for war crimes?

On the one hand, Joe Biden claiming, and John Kirby, a spokesperson, will play the clip for you in a minute, claiming nobody's doing more to alleviate the suffering of the people in Gaza, which is ridiculous. Nobody's doing more to facilitate the demise of the people in Gaza except the United States government. Who believes what Joe Biden and Tony Blinken and Admiral Kirby say? Not even Joe Biden, Tony Blinken, and Admiral Kirby. That's how bad it is. They know they're lying. And how do we know they know they're lying? Because we know what they're saying behind the scenes to Israel. They'll come out and they'll articulate publicly in support of Israel, although it's very difficult for them to do with a straight face. But we know what they're telling the Netanyahu government behind the scenes,

which is you have to stop this. We can't support this. And in fact, now the United States is beginning to say Netanyahu's got to go. So we don't even believe our own lies. That's how bad this is. But Joe Biden could stop this with a phone call. No more spare parts, no more ammunition. Stopped as of today, baby. Right now. It would stop within an hour. Joe Biden could literally pick up the phone and say, hey, BB, when I hang up, the following will happen. You're going to announce a unilateral ceasefire, followed by a phased withdrawal of your troops from Gaza. I will work with the international community to pick up the slack. Don't worry, you don't have a say in what's going

to happen, so I'm not even going to ask you. But you're going to stop doing this. And not only that, we're putting a freeze on all the spare parts to your aircraft and everything. And it'll be conditional. The unfreeze will be conditional upon your continued subservience to American foreign policy objectives now, because we're sick and tired of playing your stupid games. And Bibi would have no choice but to say, yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir. I want you to take a look at the statement made by the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations when he cast that veto at the Security Council. It's relatively brief. Then I want you to see the statements made by three Arab diplomats in response. Although the United States strongly supports a durable peace in which both Israelis and

Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support this resolution's call for an unsustainable ceasefire that will only plant the seeds for the next war. We believe there is a moral obligation toward the international community to stop the killing of the Palestinian civilians. And it's the first time, at least in my lifetime, that I have seen that calling for a ceasefire became a controversial issue. I'm not sure how deep is the understanding here of what's happening on the ground in Gaza? I mean, this war has broken every record. Largest number of journalists killed. Largest number of hospitals destroyed.

Largest number of medics killed. Largest number of UN employees killed. Our message has been very clear. There needs to be an immediate ceasefire. There needs to be a cessation of hostilities and we need to have immediate access for humanitarian aid. It is not acceptable. One side is pig-headed and the other side is rational. And the pig-headed side wears the red, white and blue of the United States of America. And I'm ashamed of my government. I'm ashamed of the stance taken by my government because it flies in the face of

everything that I was raised to believe America stood for. But it's also just, you know, it's fundamentally unsound policy. Look, Israel has set an impossible bar in the Gaza. They've said that they will destroy Hamas militarily and politically, eliminate them. That isn't going to happen. Israel will never achieve this. And so by supporting Israel, we're supporting a policy that can't be implemented, which means we are setting ourselves up for failure. We should be working with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan on how to get Hamas to the table. How can we get Hamas to moderate its position so that it can become a negotiating

partner? Because Hamas has won this war. As we're speaking, Hamas has fought the IDF to a standstill in most areas in Gaza. The Israelis are forced to retreat from certain areas, and Israel is now looking at shifting their tactics because what they're doing is unsustainable. Israel has lost. You won't know that by looking at mainstream TV, etc., but the bottom line is they're not winning this fight, and there's a real danger of Hezbollah joining this fight from the north, and if they do that, Israel is going to lose northern Israel. They'll lose the Galilee. Hezbollah will occupy this.

And now we're in the situation where Israel will feel an existential threat. And they may use nuclear weapons. And where are we in all this? Trapped in a trap of our own construct. How bad have the IDF casualties been, which the Netanyahu government is trying to shield? Do you have any word on that? Well, remember, there are certain units that are classified units, and so they may hide their casualties more effectively than others. Generally speaking, because of Jewish law, a body has to be buried a certain period of time after it dies, I think within 24 hours.

And so the Israelis will be open about the vast majority of their dead. What they're not talking about are the wounded. There's a horrific number of severely wounded Israeli soldiers by some numbers up to 5,000 and growing. And of these, over 2,000 are permanently disabled. So while the number of dead Israelis isn't, you know, I mean, it's very high for Israeli standards. Right now, over 100 of their soldiers have died in Gaza. But the number of wounded and crippled and permanently disabled soldiers is in the thousands. This is an unsustainable number for Israel. How unsustainable are stunts pulled by the IDF, like kidnapping Gaza and young men, stripping them down to their underwear, parading them through the streets and pretending that they're captured Hamas when we know that Hamas doesn't surrender. Look, a lot of what the IDF is doing is playing to a domestic audience. They were humiliated on October 7th. They're facing

humiliation today. So they're pulling off these stupid PR stunts to generate literal clicks on Israeli social media. This is the definition of stupidity and lunacy. What they did with those Palestinian men was a war crime, a literal war crime. It's unforgivable. But again, America, instead of calling them out and saying, what the heck are you up to? We're silent. We're saying no ceasefire continues. They're blowing up schools. They're blowing up mosques. They're going into the homes of Palestinians, into the women's bedrooms and pulling out their lingerie and mocking them. They're going into schools and putting down the most coarse graffiti. They're animals, pure animals. This is the kind of stuff that we would expect Nazi Germans to do. And it's being done by the IDF, a nation born out of the memory of the Holocaust.

It's shameful. And what's even more shameful is that America is being silent in the face of, you know, this flagrant disregard for norms, values that we espouse. Here's Admiral Kirby on aid to Gaza, defending the United States because of the no country in the world, according to Admiral Kirby, has done more to aid Gaza. I think you're going to change the verb in there after you listen to him. Look, we certainly share the concerns that so many of others have concerns, including the Secretary General, about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Tell me, name me one more nation,

any other nation, that's doing as much as the United States to alleviate the pain and suffering of the people of Gaza. You can't. You just can't. The United States, through President Biden, is leading the effort to get trucks,

food, water, medicine, and fuel the effort to get trucks, food, water, medicine, and fuel into the people of Gaza. Wait, wait. Name another nation, name another nation that's doing more than the United States to get hostages out or to get people, foreign nationals, out of Gaza. You can't do it. And name another nation that is doing more to urge the Israeli counterparts, our Israeli counterparts, to be as cautious and deliberate as they can be

in the prosecution of their military operations. You can't. I mean, this is delusional. Name another nation that has facilitated more death in Gaza than the United States. You can't. Look, John Kirby, let me give you an answer. More for aid? This is easy, John. Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, right there. Bam! Three nations have done far more than the United States to provide humanitarian support. Release of hostages? You haven't done a damn thing. It's Qatar that's done it. It's Egypt that's done it. It's Turkey that's doing it behind the scenes, not the United States of America. And to urge caution, you sent a three-star general over to green light the

Israeli battle plan. And he came back and the Israelis went in. You continue to provide ammunition. They're bombing the hell out of these people with the bombs we provided. They're running short of bombs. So we send them more bombs. So please don't tell me that you're doing everything possible. John Kirby, you're a war criminal. You are literally a lying sack of manure. I mean, God, I know we're on TV and I'm supposed to be a peaceful man, but John, you and I are going to be in the dark alley someday and it ain't going to turn out well for you

as I explained to you in Morse code why everything you say is a lie and you know it's a lie. I mean, your anger is justified. It's normal. It's human. This is our government for which you worked in dangerous situations for many years. And this is what it's turned into. Wasn't the purpose of World War II to prevent genocide, to stop genocide? And now we're

facilitating it. Chris, run the other Kirby on, try and get them to answer about the fake captives. Just very quickly, there's disturbing images from Gaza, northern Gaza, of people being arrested by the Israeli army, blindfolded, stripped naked. Some of them are journalists that we identified, and some are civilians. Israel is saying they're Hamas fighters, regardless of who they are.

Do you think that Israel is still acting within the international law when it treats mental prisoners? As I said, I'm not going to respond to every event on the ground and every occurrence. I haven't seen those images. It would be imprudent for me to comment on that. We don't, just as a general statement, we don't support any targeting of journalists one way or another anywhere in the world. They have a right and a responsibility to be there reporting on this. We believe that they should be allowed to do their jobs.

And we certainly don't, would never condone any inhumane or violation of law treatment of any innocent civilian. But I can't speak to those specific reports. We know damn well he has seen those images. Everybody saw those images. He's a liar. And John, please get off your high horse. The United States bombed Al Jazeera's offices in Baghdad in the 2003 war. You may not remember it, John. I do. We have targeted journalists as long as the journalists have been around who say things that we don't approve of. Now, we don't admit to it, but we do it. I mean, so to sit there and blatantly lie about the murder of journalists that's taking place,

John, you know that the Israelis are targeting the pro-Palestinian Arab journalists in Gaza, because Israel is losing the international public relations campaign. And one of the reasons why they're losing this campaign is that these journalists are doing yeoman's work in getting the truth out of Gaza to the world to see. So what does Israel do? Slaughter the journalists, kill them to try and shut them up. And you know they're doing it, John. You know they're doing it. And you're a liar. You saw the pictures. You know about the pictures.

You're the damn press spokesperson. I can guarantee you the moment those pictures appeared on TV, they appeared across your desk with a big thing, what do we say about it? And you know what your solution was, John? To lie. Because you're a liar. Over the weekend, the Secretary of State of the United States signed a statement under oath invoking emergency powers on behalf of the President, bypassing the Congress to send $100 million worth of shells and ammunition and small arms rounds to Israel. In order to do that, under the statute, he had to swear again under oath that this was a true emergency, a threat

to the national security of the United States. Now, Scott, how can they do this to us with a straight face? How can they even make an argument that bypassing Congress to send $100 million in explosive materials enhances the national security of the United States? They can't. They can't. But the problem is Congress is bought and paid for by Israel. Israel is going to spend $100 million in the upcoming election. When I say Israel, I mean AIPAC, the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee that claims to be purely an American institution. But in the past, their employees have been caught spying on behalf of Israel. We know there's the money. Show me the money. There it is. Israel owns the American Congress.

This is why the American Congress will not hold the president accountable for violating the rule of law, for violating the Constitution, for violating the laws of the land in supporting Israel. This is ridiculous. Look, Israel getting beat by Hamas in Gaza is not a national security threat to the United States of America. It may be a problem for Israel, but Israel ain't America. That's the one thing people have to start understanding. There is no American-Israel joint at the hip. They don't like us. Friends don't buy the loyalty of friends. Okay, that's what's happening here. They're buying elections to get Congress to do their bidding. Man, if Israel was everything they claimed to be, you wouldn't have to buy Congress. We would just naturally incline to support our Israeli friends,

but no, they have to be bought. Why? Because Israel has attacked the USS Liberty, slaughtering American sailors in 1967. Israel threatened American Marines in 1982. Israel has spied upon the United States, Jonathan Pollard. Israel has put listening devices near the White House to spy on the cell phone communications of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and they're probably doing it against Joe Biden today. Israel is not our friend. Israel is using the United States for its own purposes, and its own purposes run counter to everything we stand for as a nation, equality, individual freedoms. No, Israel is all about Jewish people, Jewish Israelis, the Zionists. They're not about Palestinians. They're not about Egyptians, Syrians. They're

not about Americans. Unless you have a dual citizenship, unless you have dual passport, they don't care about you. They only care about themselves. This is okay. Nations are supposed to look out for their own interests. But America, please wake up. Israel is not our friend. In fact, in many ways, Israel is our enemy. And in many ways, they're our worst enemy because we have been lulled into believing they're our friends and they're getting away with literal murder. While we speak, the United Nations Security Council just voted on a resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. 153 in favor, 10 against, 23 abstained. I don't have the list of the against or the abstained, but it does tell you about the consensus in the international community. Of what value to the United States, other than domestic

American politics, is the relationship between the U.S. and Israel? There was a time in the Cold War when one could articulate that sound relations with Israel was beneficial because the Soviet Union had made inroads in large numbers of Arab nations, Egypt, Iraq, etc. And having Israel as a bulwark against that as sort of an American aircraft carrier, so to speak, in the Mediterranean was of value. But as the Cold War ended, that geopolitical posturing ceased to exist. And that's about the time that Israel made a decision that they needed to change their approach to the United States. Rather than trying to sell themselves as an asset that would naturally attract American support, Israel started selling themselves as an extension of America, buying our loyalty by buying our Congress.

Israel provides nothing to the United States. It costs us money, and right now it's destroying our reputation even worse than we already have around the world. We are more isolated today than we have been at any time in modern history. Are you of the view that domestic political forces will expel President Netanyahu from office, or are you of the view that the IDF will continue its monstrosities in Gaza and other forces like Hezbollah will enter the fray? Well, first of all, I think that Israel is scared to death of Hezbollah entering the fray because they know that they can't beat Hezbollah, and they definitely can't beat Hezbollah and Aaron Afray because they know that they can't beat Hezbollah and they definitely can't beat Hezbollah without American assistance. And if Israel continues to push for a conflict that we don't want to fight, the level of American assistance

may be negligible at best. I think that Netanyahu's days on this earth are limited. He has less than 4%, less than 4% approval rating in Israel. He's lost the trust of the Israeli people. And right now he's become an impediment to the political fortunes of Joe Biden. Remember, Joe Biden is an American president, but he's also an American politician who's seeking re-election come November of 2024. And right, Israel is sinking his ship. I mean, Ukraine has punched a big hole in his ship, but Israel's sinking his ship. And so I think you're going to see Joe Biden go into damage control mode. And the first thing that's going to happen is that Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government are going to be jettisoned. And then the next

question is, who's going to take over and what are we going to have to do with them to bring an end to this conflict? Because again, I'll just remind everybody, Hamas can't be beat. They've already won. And it's just a question of how many more innocent Palestinians are going to die before Israel, the United States, recognize the inevitability of this Hamas victory. Before we go, I want to switch gears to Ukraine. Here's two clips. Here's Joe Biden in July of this year, just five months ago. And then again, Joe Biden last week saying essentially the opposite. 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. Extreme Republicans are playing chicken with our national security, holding Ukraine's funding hostage to their extreme partisan border policies. If Putin takes Ukraine, he won't stop there. It's important to see the long run here. He's going to keep going. He's made that pretty clear.

Putin attacks the NATO ally, then we'll have something that we don't seek and that we don't have today, American troops fighting Russian troops, American troops fighting Russian troops if he moves into other parts of NATO. PEDRO DACOSTA- Has Putin lost or is he about to, quote, take Ukraine? This is really absurd from the mouth of an American president, Scott. Well, it just shows that when he speaks, he speaks with a superficiality that is defined more by domestic American politics than reality on the ground.

You and I know, when you played that clip originally, we critiqued it and just said, how can you say that Putin's losing? Putin was winning. Well, now Putin's won. I mean, there's still fighting left to be done, but the Ukrainians are out of money at the end of this month. Congress has made it clear they ain't getting any more money. Ukraine's going to start eating itself. It's like a starving body. It's going to start feeding upon itself. Ukrainian military has already made a decision that they're going to have to withdraw to more defensible positions, but they don't have anything left to defend. Russia, on the other hand, has hundreds of thousands of troops yet to be committed to this battle. This war is over. It's a humiliating defeat. But the good news is that Russia has no intention whatsoever of moving into Poland or the Baltics, etc.

This is totally a false construct made by, there's the president of Russia putting the hat on. Yes, it's in the West Bank and the cap of one of the honor guards falls off and the president himself picks it up and puts it on the fellow's head. Yeah, I feel sorry for that guy later on in the barracks, because he's going to be harassed for that, as any soldier would be for losing control of their cover. But the fact is, you know, Russia is not going to invade Poland. So the president put forward, the good news is all this fear about Americans fighting Russians is predicated on Russia going into NATO, Article 5 being triggered. That just isn't going to happen. And so once again, this is the president lying to

the American people about issues of national security and national fiscal policy, $60 billion he wants. I'm not a big fan of Mike Johnson, but he said something today when he spoke about it. He said, before we give Ukraine $60 billion, we need to, A, have accountability. We need an inspector general in place. And B, we need a plan. You need to tell us, okay, we give you $60 billion. What are you going to do with it? How are you going to win? He said, Ukraine doesn't have a plan. The Biden administration doesn't have a plan, and they don't. It's simply pouring good money after bad. And thank goodness we have somebody in the U.S. Congress who's finally saying, time out. This isn't going to happen.

All right. Time out for us. Thank you, Scott. Thanks for your passion and your justifiable moral anger at the depths to which the American government has sunk. And thank you so much for coming on the show as regularly, consistently as you do, and sharing your insight with us. Thanks for having me. Okay. All the best. So we're almost up to 250,000 subscribers. We broke 248,000 today. Please stay with us. Please tell your friends and your colleagues and your coworkers and the people you meet at cocktail parties in the coming holidays, take a listen to Judging Freedom. You'll hear another side of things. Thank you for watching. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.