Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter : Reality in Ukraine

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

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Thank you. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, May 20th, 2024. Scott Ritter joins us now. Scott, a pleasure as always, my dear friend. I'd like to start with what has been breaking news in the past 12 or 18 hours. The first of these three or four breaking news items is the publicly announced decision of the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court to ask a panel of three judges to accept an indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu

and Defense Minister Galant and three leaders of Hamas and to issue arrest warrants for them. What's your take on this? Does this have any geopolitical effect? Is there any PR effect? Is there any effect on the freedom of these five guys? Well, I mean, in theory, if the court issues the warrants, then people who are parties to the statute will be obligated to arrest anybody named in the warrant should they fall in their jurisdiction. I mean, we've seen in the case of Vladimir Putin, nations like South Africa basically cautioned him away from attending the BRICS summit last year because they said they would be obligated to honor that warrant. So if the warrants are issued, this could create a problem for especially the Israeli government,

since Hamas leadership is more comfortable, I think, hiding out in the tunnels underneath Gaza right now than they are getting on aircraft flying around the world. This is purely a political move. I mean, we have yet to see whether or not the court will actually sign off on the warrants. The United States, both the Senate and the President now have made it clear that they won't support this. And I don't know if the court wants to bring the wrath of America down on it. That could have a detrimental impact on it. And it's also political in that, you know, clearly the prosecutor, and I just need to remind everybody just how political the ICC is. They indicted Vladimir Putin and a senior Russian government

official for, you know, basically kidnapping Ukrainian children. And part of the evidence was, you know, these children went missing into Russia. And then earlier this year, 160 of the children who were central to this indictment showed up in Germany. They were never, you know, kidnapped. They were never kidnapped, but it's purely political pressure. You know, the ICC bowed to the pressure from Ukraine and Europe to indict, you know, Vladimir Putin on a baseless allegation. The Israelis, of course, there are reasons to believe Israel is committing war crimes. And it's a solid indictment, but it's put under by pressure.

I mean, the ICC has been pressured by Europe to do something, but it can't do it purely. If they had just indicted the Israeli leaders, I'd say, okay, that's a clean indictment, but they had to indict Hamas, proving that they don't know the difference between an occupied nation and an occupier and what the legal distinction is between the actions of the two. So this is a political indictment. I don't know. I don't think it's going to be signed off by the court, which will further undermine the credibility of the court, showing that they bow to American pressure. But this is just a sloppy indictment, and I don't believe it's going to have any real impact. It just further erodes the credibility of the ICC. One of the Hamas folks indicted, according to Alistair Crook, is a friend of Alistair's and is the chief negotiator for Hamas, who flies back and forth between Doha

and Cairo, where the negotiations are taking place. And why on earth would they indict somebody like that and prevent him and effectively, of course, he hasn't been indicted yet. If he is indicted, effectively prevent him from participating in these negotiations. Well, remember prior to this indictment, they killed the lead negotiator, the man who was negotiating on behalf of Hamas. The Israelis killed him, assassinated him. So the Israelis aren't interested in a negotiated settlement. They're not interested in what Hamas can bring to the table. Their stated objective is to eliminate Hamas, to destroy them militarily and politically. So

they don't want to do anything that gives Hamas credibility as a political actor. So they're, from the Israeli standpoint, indicting this. And you're saying, well, Israel didn't indict them. Why did the ICC do it? Because they're not thinking, Judge. These aren't thinking people. This is purely a political indictment. You know this, and I know this, that prosecutors have wide discretion when it comes to bringing an indictment. And when you have somebody who is doing something in the greater good, sometimes prosecutors turn a blind eye to offenses, especially if deals can be made to have them stop doing that which offends. Here, the ICC doesn't care about the greater good. They don't care about bringing about a peaceful resolution. This is purely an indictment. The indictment of Hamas is purely a way to cover the politicized indict judges of the British High Court authorized a final appeal for Julian Assange.

Now, normally, you would say, my God, how many appeals is he getting? ordered his extradition subject to the United States government, satisfying them that if Assange has tried in the U.S., he'll get a fair trial, he'll have the full panoply of rights that an American citizen would, he can make a First Amendment defense. In my view, the First Amendment defense is absolute here, so there shouldn't even be a charge, but there is, and he wouldn't be exposed to the death penalty. Rather than sending a high-ranking official of the Department of Justice to come into court and state under oath that these conditions would be met, the United States government instead had a political appointee at the embassy in London send a letter to the court, and the court dismissed the

letter and said, we don't accept this. He can file an appeal, and he can appeal on these four bases. I know you think, as I do, that his work was courageous, truthful, and there should be no prosecution whatsoever. Of all people who agree with us, Barack Obama and Eric Holder, the former president and the then Attorney General, agreed with us, and they decided not to indict. Mike Pompeo talked Donald Trump into allowing Bill Barr, if you follow me, to seek an indictment from a grand jury, and it was the Trump administration that indicted Assange. Trump himself told me personally he was going to pardon Assange. It never happened. What's your take on all of this? Well, as you said, this is a travesty of justice, first of all. Every American should pay attention, even though this is going on in a

British court and it involves an Australian citizen. This is about freedom of speech. It's American, you know, this is an American Department of Justice operating under political direction to punish a man for embarrassing the United States, because that's the only crime that Julian Assange has committed here. It's to embarrass the United States. And again, you're the expert on law, Judge here. It's to embarrass the United States. And again, you're the expert on law, Judge, but I think it's the United States versus the New York Times, the Supreme Court. Depending on paper's case, correct. Where they said, it's the job. That's what the First Amendment's there for, to embarrass the

U.S. government, that the U.S. government can't deny free speech to avoid embarrassment or even to the point of it can't stop the publication of some secret information like the Pentagon Papers. Julian Assange just embarrassed us. He showed that we were a nation that lies habitually, that we commit war crimes and that we lie to cover them up. He's guilty of telling the truth and getting the truth out there, things that anybody who believes in free speech should applaud. And he is paying the price because there are people in the United States who are embarrassed by what he has done. No American publisher is being prosecuted for the crimes that Julian Assange is being prosecuted for. And yet Julian Assange is being prosecuted for.

And yet all of the major American publishing entities, such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and others, are guilty of doing exactly what Julian Assange did. In some cases, even more, Julian Assange was assiduous in trying to protect the names of people who, if their identity was exposed, could be at risk. And there were publishing houses, including The Guardian, and I believe some in the United States, who disregarded his advice and published all the details. And now he's being accused of putting people at risk. This is a travesty. And I'm glad he's getting his appeal. I hope this time that the court wakes up, and I

hope he gets the freedom that he so richly deserves. Well, this will take a few months, and we'll see what happens. There have been several judges in the British court system that have ruled in his favor. They've all been overruled, but these last two who issued their ruling this morning was very, very telling. They were very dismissive and skeptical about whether he could get a fair trial in the United States. I don't think he'll get a fair trial in the United States. I don't think he'll survive in the United States. Well, he needs to get out of British prison.

I mean, one of the concerns is he won't survive British prison if they keep this going long enough. He is under extraordinary mental duress and physical challenges dating back to the time of COVID, where he was in isolation and his health has deteriorated. He hasn't recovered. This is a man who literally could die at any day. People who've talked to him, I haven't, but people who have talked to him say that his mental health isn't there. He's not the Julian Assange that went to prison. This is somebody who is deteriorating physically and mentally. He needs to get out of the prison. The good news here is that the two judges, they're not doing this because of Julian Assange. They're doing this because the United States has insulted Great Britain, that the United States has shown no regard whatsoever to the instructions of the British government

and the British judiciary regarding America's commitments. The United States is saying, well, we're America. We don't have to really follow this, do we? It's a wink and a nod. And these two judges, they're not sympathetic to Assange, but they are sympathetic to British national sovereignty. And I think this is the issue that may actually get Assange free, not because they agree with him, but because they drew a line to be insulted by the United States. Yeah. I mean, the other thing going on is theoretically there's some negotiations between the government of Australia and of which he's a citizen in the Biden administration. I believe that the legislature of Australia, the parliament, voted unanimously to instruct the president or prime minister, I guess he's the prime minister,

to negotiate with the U.S. to get him home. Look, in this letter that the U.S. sent to these judges, it said not only will he not get the death penalty, if he's convicted of everything, he might get four to six years. I don't know how they could possibly say that. However, he's been in solitary confinement in Britain for five years already. Our friend and colleague, Matt Ho, is in London trying to see him as we speak, so we may get a firsthand report from him when Matt returns. The other breaking news is that the president of Iran is dead, as is his defense minister, in a caravan of three helicopters, two of which landed safely in the hills in northern Iran, not hills, mountains, but the one carrying the prime minister or the president and the

secretary or minister of defense crashed and everybody on it died. Is this just an unfortunate mechanical or weather-related accident, or is there any evidence of foul play of which you're aware? This is so early, it's impossible to say. Look, I will say this. Historically speaking, helicopters, mountains, and bad weather are not a good combination. And there are many examples of helicopters going down in terrain such as this in bad weather. Even the best pilots, you know, when they transition to instrument flight rules, IFR, out of visual flight rules, don't make the transition properly, and they get disoriented,

and the helicopter crashes. They close with the terrain too fast, and you get a crash like this. Right now, if I were in a casino and forced to bet, my bet would be that this is just a tragic accident, but they'll recover the black box. They'll do the forensics, and they'll come up with the appropriate thing. I think the more important thing here is what happens to Iran now. And I think, you know, many people who don't study Iran, first of all, let me just add this. I met the president and the foreign, it was the foreign minister, not the defense minister who died on this. I met them last September and had conversations with them about, you know, ballistic missiles, nuclear policy, and deterrence

policy, which were relevant to what just recently happened back in April. These are men who are very strong pro-Iranian advocates, but are moderate and willing to talk and willing to listen. So anybody in the West who's applauding their death, your applause is misplaced because, you know, Iran is fully capable of replacing them with more hardliners. The good news is that Iran has a constitution and that constitution has specific is obligated, together with the Speaker of the Parliament and the head of judiciary, to hold new presidential elections within 50 days. They've announced, I believe, June 29th is the date of the next election. And so, you know, the process of democracy in Iran, which many in the West, you know, will will go on and this is an important election

because the last election um the the president raishi in the parliament they didn't you didn't get a great turnout and for the iranians in particular since the formation of the islamic republic uh the ayatollah khomeini the founder said it's essential that the iranian people participate in these elections because that shows their support for the Islamic Republic. And based upon the last results, the support was waning. And it'll be interesting to see if the Iranian government can take it, not take advantage, but build on the sympathies that have accrued to Ibrahim Raisi amongst the Iranian population to see if they can get a better turnout and give whatever government replaces Raisi a more popular mandate to govern at a critical time of

transition. It's not just the conflict in Gaza, but BRICS and Iran's role in the expansion of BRICS, Iran's role in peace and stability in the Middle East, its reconciliation with Saudi Arabia. All of these were done under Raisi, and it'll be important for Iran to get not just a new president, but a foreign minister that's capable of furthering these policies. I'm going to run a clip for you from Benny Gantz. Here's what he said. This is number eight, Sonia. Here's what he said.

It's brief, over the weekend. If we are to continue to fight shoulder to shoulder, the Cabinet must approve by the 8th of June an action plan that will lead to the realization of our strategic goals. Talking about leaving the war cabinet if Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn't have a plan in place by June 8th for a permanent ceasefire and the return of the hostages. Listen, you understand better than anybody the Byzantine ways that the Israeli government operates and the various pressures on various actors. If Netanyahu quit tomorrow and Gantz became the prime minister, I don't think there'd be any material change in the slaughter in Gaza. But I'll let you address all this, Scott. Well, remember, a key aspect of Gantz's demands isn't just a ceasefire, return of hostages. It's a plan to achieve the stated objectives, which are the military defeat of Hamas and

the disenfranchisement of Hamas as a political organization. So Gantz isn't a softliner or moderate. He's a hardliner. But he, you know, he wants Netanyahu to commit to a plan of action where you could actually say, this is what we hope to accomplish. What Netanyahu is doing right now is extending this conflict without any conflict resolution, because this isn't about defeating Hamas anymore for Netanyahu. This is about political survival. And so Gantz is calling them out on that because Gantz knows that it'll be impossible for Netanyahu to do what he asked because that'll mean that Netanyahu is setting himself up for political failure. And if Gantz leaves the government, it'll be impossible for Netanyahu to continue this war cabinet and therefore continue a governing coalition.

So, you know, I don't know what Gantz hopes to achieve here. I think he's tired of the hypocrisy and the endless nature of this conflict, and he's trying to bring it to a head. But this means the political demise of Benjamin Netanyahu. Is Gantz Washington's guy? He's more of Washington's guy than Netanyahu. But Gantz has problems too. I mean, Gantz isn't, there's no guarantee that Gantz would be able to form a governing coalition. One of the reasons why Netanyahu is in power today is because Gantz couldn't form a governing coalition. He couldn't assemble enough support in the Knesset to take government.

So he was passed on to Netanyahu, cobbled together this right wing governing majority. But when that collapses, I don't think Benny Gantz is the guy that's going to step in and lead Israel. He may be an interim choice while a government is chosen. But this is just going to throw Israel into political chaos, political turmoil. And it's going to make a resolution of the current Gaza conflict almost impossible to have. Israel needs to be on solid political footing to bring this conflict to an end. How is the IDF doing in Gaza in their efforts to eliminate Hamas and what's going on with Hezbollah in the West Bank? Well, I mean, in Gaza, if you take at face value the videos that are coming out in the news reports, the Israelis are suffering egregiously.

You know, they went into an area that had, you know, an intact urban environment. They proceeded to level it with bombs and shelling and explosives. And then they withdrew, forgetting that Hamas didn't operate above ground. Hamas operated't operate above ground. Hamas are operating below ground, and now Hamas has been able to come up into this rubble and dig in and create, you know, pre-planned ambush sites, you know, extend their tunnels. And, you know, now Israel's moved in and Hamas is just picking them off. There's no safe spot for Israel. There's no refuge. Every place they go, every building they go, every place they park their tanks are coming under attack. And it's wearing them down.

It's demoralizing their troops. The Israeli Defense Force today is a force that's extremely demoralized. Their will to fight is withering as we speak. And it's not just in Gaza, but you go up to the Lebanese border and you take a look at how Hamas is just picking them apart piece by piece by piece. Hamas or Hezbollah? I'm sorry, Hezbollah. Hezbollah is picking them apart. And the Israelis have no effective response to that. They can't escalate the war because if Hezbollah were to turn up the volume to 100%, that could mean a defeat, a military defeat for the Israelis.

So they're stuck in this war of attrition where there is no hope of victory. They're just losing more and more people. And again, demoralized military. This is just a bad situation. All right, so maybe this is Gantz's point. What is Netanyahu's game plan other than endless war so he has an endless premiership? That's it. That's the only game plan Netanyahu has. And it's frustrating to the war cabinet and frustrating to people like Benny Gantz. But Benny Gantz, we have to remember, he's not just

a former minister of defense and former acting prime minister. He's a man who aspires to be prime minister. But if you look at his face, there's no confidence there. This isn't a man who's saying, I'm here to lead you. He's a tired man. He's a frustrated man. He's a defeated man. But he at least has the courage to understand that Netanyahu offers nothing to the Israeli people but more death and suffering. So

I think he's trying to bring this issue to a head without actually saying what needs to be done. The first step is to get rid of Netanyahu. The next step, then we'll see what happens. Over the weekend, I'm transitioning, Scott. General Christopher Cavoli, four-star commander of CENTCOM. This is like the Supreme Allied commander. This fellow commands all NATO troops in Europe, if I'm not mistaken. Said that Russia lacks the number of troops, the skills, the capability for a breakthrough. His friend, I don't know who this fellow is, Admiral Bauer,

Admiral, says Russian troops are of inferior quality to American and to Ukrainian. This is crazy stuff. But my question to you is, you can put these two aside or take them on if you want, how does the Russian military compare to the American military at this moment in time? On the field of battle, the Russian military will prevail. They are combat hardened, and it's not just combat hardened. They are hardened based upon modern technologies, modern tactics, the modern techniques of warfare. They understand what it's like to operate in an electronic warfare intensive environment. They know how to use and defend against these FPV drones, which America has no experience in.

They have perfected their fire support communications so that they can locate targets, bring fire support down. And again, remember, this is done in an electronic warfare intensive environment with very aggressive jamming done by the Ukrainian forces of Russian communications. They know how to logistically support themselves in war. the NTC National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where the U.S. Army runs brigade-sized evolutions, supposed to be realistic. Take a look at their logistics support plan. Look at how they support things logistically. We're still doing it out of the Cold War playbook, where we are bringing in convoys of fuel trucks, convoys. We set up big centralized logistics supply points and our troops operate from that. You do that in a modern war, that will be hit by missiles and destroyed. There's nothing left. The Russians have perfected the art of breaking this logistics into penny packets,

which are then infiltrated into the front lines to support the troops. So if you get one, you don't cause the whole operation to come apart. The Russians are savvy. And it's not just local knowledge. The Russians have institutionalized this. They have taken their commanders from the front lines and they've taken them to their academies, the Combined Arms Academy, the General Staff Academy, where not only have they taken the knowledge that they have, they've taken knowledge of others, consolidated it, thought it through, come up with doctrine and retaught it, brought these guys back so they can train troops. Now they're putting them in command of the troops on the ground. So from the top to the bottom,

the Russians are operating off of the same modern up-to-date doctrine, which is derived from the lessons of real war, not the theory. With all due respect to Christopher Cavoli, he hasn't fought in a real war, not this kind of war. His experience is related to low-intensity conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. He doesn't know this, but he admitted this in early 2023 when he spoke to a Swedish defense forum. He admitted, he said, we can't imagine the scope and scale of the violence taking place in Ukraine today. If you can't imagine it, that means you're not ready to fight it. Today, he's been politicized. Today, he's saying utter nonsense.

Look, American troops, we march better. There's no doubt about that. I mean, the Russians have their parade troops. They do a good job. But we march better. We have better administrative paperwork, I bet. Who knows? But when it comes to fighting, getting out there and hooking and jabbing with the enemy, there's no finer military force today than the Russian army.

All right. One last observation. You'll either laugh or be angry at me. I'm not even going to introduce her, but she's back. Cut number six. I think if the attacks are coming directly from over the line in Russia, that those bases ought to be fair game, whether they are where missiles are being launched from or where they are where troops are being supplied from. I think it's time for that because Russia has obviously escalated this war, including, as you said at the beginning, attacking Russia's second city, Kharkiv, which is not on the front lines and trying to decimate it without ever having to put a boot on the ground. So I think it is time to give the Ukrainians more help hitting these bases inside Russia. Hitting these bases inside Russia, Madame World War III, she wants it. There's a reason why she's the former assistant deputy secretary of state, because she was articulating this policy. There was a time

when what she was saying was in line with the Biden administration's policy thinking regarding Ukraine. There's a reason why we supplied Ukraine with some of the weapons we did, with the intelligence we did, et cetera. But it became clear that the Ukrainians weren't going to hold the line, that the Ukrainians were going to collapse, and that if you provoke the Russians, that this could lead to an expansion of the conflict at the United States and NATO weren't prepared to respond to effectively, and that this could create the kind of escalation that leads to direct military conflict, which the Biden administration sought to avoid. They cautioned Nuland not to articulate this. She went behind their backs, pushed the Pentagon behind the scenes, spoke with the Ukrainians behind the scenes,

and was fired as a result. She's just simply out there speaking publicly about that which got her fired. Fortunately, no one in the Biden administration's listening to her. She's a disgraced former official. She's just playing to her, I think they sent her to Columbia or to Harvard or someplace where she has her sinecure. And she's just trying to appease those who underwrite her current academic status. You'll love this. She's at Columbia where team teaches a class with Hillary Clinton. Well, there you go. We just rolled a great hand. If ever there were. Scott, I got to go.

Thank you very much, my dear friend. I know we have to talk about a few things, but I'll reach out to you. Okay, thank you. Very much appreciated. Thank you so much for coming on as always. Thanks. You got it.

Long day, happy day. All of our heavy hitters are here. The rest will be here the rest of this week. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.