Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter: Ukraine’s Done; Israel’s In Uproar.

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

Scott Ritter: Ukraine’s Done; Israel’s In Uproar.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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But first, this. A divisive presidential election is upon us, and the winner is gold. Let me tell you what I mean. Since 2016, our national debt has grown a staggering 70%, and gold has increased by 60%. Do you own gold? I do. I bought my gold in February 2023, and it has risen 33%. You've heard me talk about Wear Capital, the company I trust.

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Within a day of the government ordering Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox to be subject to the draft pursuant to a ruling of the Israeli Supreme Court, and within a day or two of the announcement of the arrest of former Prime Minister Netanyahu's chief spokesperson on espionage charges and the refusal of a court to grant him bail, Prime Minister Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Galant. What's your take on this? Well, Galant's been on thin ice for some time now. There was talk about Netanyahu firing him back prior to the Iranian missile attack, the second one, on October 1st on Israel. Galant stayed on because, you know, he was, they needed the continuity of command to craft Israel's retaliation strike. But even then, the feeling was as soon as Israel retaliated, that Gallant would be fired. But Netanyahu came under a lot of pressure. I think the arrest that

you speak of, of the spokesperson, relates to the release of documents that were very embarrassing to Netanyahu that provides a counter-narrative to that that the Israeli government had about Hamas being the one responsible for obstruction of ceasefire or any hostage negotiation. Netanyahu was always blamed on Hamas, but these documents show the exact opposite, that it was Benjamin Netanyahu himself that purposefully sabotaged everything. Gallant has been opposed to Netanyahu's escalation in Lebanon and potential escalation with Iran. He has spoken out over the condemned Netanyahu for the lack of strategic vision, you know, how to win these wars, how to end these wars. And I think his firing was inevitable. It was already,

you know, being talked about. And it just, you know, Netanyahu just needed the right time to do it. And I think he took advantage of the uproar over the release of these documents to say that he no longer has trust and confidence in the defense minister, so he fired him. Was Gallant, is Gallant respected by senior military leadership in the IDF? And if he was, does his successor Israel Katz enjoy that kind of respect? Well, Gallant is somebody who holds the respect of the military. And if he was, does his successor Israel Katz enjoy that kind of respect? Well, Golan is somebody who holds the respect of the military. You know, he has come under harsh criticism because of October 7th.

And also, you know, remember, he's the minister of defense. The buck stops with him for the failures in Gaza and the failures in Lebanon. But, you know, he has been able to deflect this by pointing the finger, rightfully so, at Benjamin Netanyahu and the interference in these issues by the prime minister. Israel Katz is not an unknown. He's a long-time politician. He's been the minister of foreign affairs under previous Netanyahu administrations. He most recently was the Minister of Energy, which means he's involved in Israel's nuclear program. You know, he's a man who's read into the deepest secrets. So he's an establishment man who, you know, will be able to come in and hold the respect of the generals so long as he is willing to articulate to the prime minister the advice being given by the military. I think Katz will be able to do that.

Who calls the shots? Who decides in Israel the nature and extent and timing of attacks on Iran. Who made the decisions to have three waves of attack, canceling the first wave halfway through and totally canceling the second and the third? Is it Netanyahu? Is it Galant? Is it the professionals in the field? No. In Israel, when Israel enters into an emergency situation like this, they form a war cabinet. And there's three members on the war cabinet, and all three have to concur before something can be done. It's a unique aspect of Israeli democracy, so that the prime minister cannot do things on his own volition.

He would, normally he would have to take it to the Knesset and, and, and get concurrence, you know, get political support for issues. But in time of war, they've shrunk that down to three, but you need the concurrence of the entire war cabinet to,

to move forward. Now, generally speaking, you can surround yourselves with people who are um you know politically loyal since you picked them so one would assume that if you pick your defense minister and your minister of uh in interior as your as your big three maybe have a couple more surrounding you uh that advise you these are people who are politically loyal to you um so generally speaking they will support uh what you propose. What's happened with

Netanyahu, though, is that because these conflicts have taken on a personal nature, meaning they seem to be being waged to preserve the political legacy of Netanyahu above and beyond promoting the security, legitimate security of Israel, there's been some division in the council. Also the nature of this coalition where Netanyahu has made common cause with some extreme right-wing people like Ben Gevir, the Minister of Interior. There is the traditional Likud people like Gallant. They don't see eye to eye with Ben Gevir and those extremists. So there's already some tension there in the war cabinet. What happened, as you see it, and I know I've asked you this before, it's a prelude to a follow-up. What happened when Israel last waged an assault on Iran?

Did they confront a Russian missile defense system with which they were unfamiliar? No, no. I mean, Alistair Crook has spoken. He has, you know, you know Alistair very well. Right. And I have a lot of respect for Alistair, both in terms of his professional pedigree and the fact that he still maintains very good connections on both sides of the fence over in the Middle East, especially in Israel. So, you know, Alistair Crook has indicated that the Israelis were painted by an air defense system of an unknown nature 75 to 100 kilometers inside Iraq before they got to the Iranian border. And this disrupted the Israeli attack. I would say that the Iranians probably were not able to fully integrate,

if Russia did provide them the S-400 air defense system, one of the most advanced systems, that it wouldn't have been fully integrated into the Iranian air defense network. The Iranians are very good though at air defense, at technology. We saw that with their missiles that are able to penetrate Israel's ballistic missile defense shield. Iran has developed some advanced capabilities that take advantage of intelligence that they've gathered, for instance, in Syria, where the United States flies F-35s, F-22s. They were able to get

the radar cross sections on that, develop radar specifically designed to detect this. And I think that the Iranians surprised the Israel, it's more likely they surprised them with an indigenously produced capability, one that has been thoroughly integrated into the integrated air defense of Iran. So I think it was probably an Iranian system of unknown nature, meaning that the Israelis had yet to encounter that. Did the Israelis do significant, appreciable, measurable, noticeable damage to Iran's missile defense system, whatever they did 10 days ago? My gut feeling is no. Even if you had everything hit, it's an extensive missile defense system.

It's extensive anti-air defense system. A lot of targets, a lot more targets than systems were fired. I believe that they did hit some targets. They did do some damage. The Iranians admit to four military personnel being killed, one civilian being killed. I believe that they'll hit some targets in the Parchin missile production facility. But again, as somebody who has planned these kind of strikes during wartime and done the battle damage assessment of them, both in terms of looking at it in the immediate post-strike using intelligence means and as a weapons inspector walking the ground afterwards, seeing up close and personal the damage done. Even when you get all your weapons deployed, the damage is often far less than you think

you're inflicting. Here, we have a disrupted Israeli attack of an incomplete nature, where Iranian missile defense appears to have shot down the majority of the Israeli missiles. I don't believe the Israelis delivered anything close to a knockout blow to Iran. Here's General Jack Keane on Fox News, who has what I think is an off-the-wall view of this, but I'd like you to comment on a cut number three. Military effects of that strike is beyond what's being reported because they have literally taken down most of the Russian air defense system, the so-called S-300 missile defense systems that the Russians gave them years ago. And that's what's really protecting their nuclear enterprise, their oil and gas industry,

and other key strategic assets like the missile production factories that the Israelis did destroy at multiple sites. Those are ballistic missile factories, by the way. So, yes, this air defense system destruction is really powerful because Iran is sitting there essentially naked. Iran is sitting there essentially naked. Does this make any sense? No.

Again, General Keen knows nothing about air defense systems. He wouldn't be able to outline or do an overlay of the Iranian air defense network. He wouldn't be able to explain how the S-300 is deployed, why it's deployed, how it integrates in with other air defense systems. And so he's basically taking talking points that are fed to him by somebody in the Pentagon who is told to spin this thing in a certain way. With all due respect, I mean, I don't have any use for him anyways. Since he's retired, he has become overly politicized. He's lost any credibility he may have had because he's not capable of challenging the official narrative. I have yet to see him challenge the official narrative when it comes to things like this.

And all he's done here is taken data that was spoon-fed to him by somebody else. There's no original analysis in General Keen's statement, none whatsoever. If the Israeli Air Force is unable to penetrate successfully the Iranian missile defenses, can we conclude that the United States Air Force is similarly or will be similarly unable to succeed in such a penetration? It'll be difficult. Remember, Israel has a problem of time and space and the fact that they have to fly over, you know, potentially hostile terrain to get to Iran. The United States, you know, we can use aircraft carriers. If we take our B-52s out of Al-Udaid, where they're just sitting ducks there, and move them to Diego Garcia, et cetera. We're pretty good at, we have very good intelligence and we're pretty good at identifying overlaying enemy air defense and we can do suppression of enemy air defense. It's not a guarantee that we could have our way with, but

I think we're capable of putting a strike package in and hitting any target we want to inside Iran. We're that good. We're not bad. It doesn't mean we won't suffer losses, and it doesn't mean that when we do strike the target, we're going to destroy the target. But I have confidence in the American military's ability to penetrate just about any air defense system in the world and put bombs on target. What is the, if you know, political ramifications of BB Gate, you know, the leaking of these documents? Why would it have been done by someone on the inner circle of Netanyahu unless he hated his boss or he's of the view that exposing these documents, which is an act of espionage under Israeli law, would force Netanyahu from office, expedite a ceasefire, produce the return of the hostages. What's your take on this? Well, I think that's just it. I mean, first of all,

Benjamin Netanyahu is a liar and he's lied to the Israeli people. So one of the things that has happened with these documents being released is that Benjamin Netanyahu has been exposed to the Israeli public as a liar. Now, many people suspected him of this, but now there's no longer a debate about this. You know, the families of the hostages are a very politically powerful constituency, and he has now shown that he has betrayed them. He has lied to them from the very beginning. The same thing about any family of soldiers who have died who could have lived had Benjamin Netanyahu implemented a ceasefire. This becomes problematic so i think this was designed to weaken netanyahu politically in hopes of um getting him pushed out of office it's designed to you know begin to to

erode the um the foundation of political support that uh currently exists for benjamin netanyahu and we'll see this could be a fatal wound so maybe maybe the firing of Gallant was Netanyahu's attempt to get his own lies and failures off the front page. Well, I think he's going to try to shift a lot of the blame onto Gallant. And so by firing Gallant, he now is able to blame Gallant and point the finger. And again, Israel Katz is not an incompetent person. He's a very politically savvy politician. He's been around for a long time. He's served in cabinet positions. He's not a neophyte. And so he'll serve Netanyahu well. So I think Netanyahu

believes that he can bolster up politically the war cabinet. But we'll see, because there's no guarantee that Kotz is going to be a dupe to Netanyahu. Kotz is not cut out of the same piece of cloth as Ben-Gavir is, and there still will be this hostile dynamic there. Will the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox be drafted? Well, some of them will be. I mean, some of them will be. I mean, some of them will oppose. Does the IDF want these characters in the military?

No, the IDF would prefer not to have them. But there's a manpower problem right now, an absolute critical manpower problem. You know, Israeli reservists are starting to commit suicide in meaningful numbers. Some high-profile suicides. A very highly trained pilot killed himself rather than go back to duty. Others are killing themselves. The desertion rate is between 12% and 24%. Some cases higher on some of these frontline combat units.

Many of the reserve units, when they are mobilized because of the high level of no-shows, they look like a brigade on paper, but they're really a little more than a reinforced battalion because they don't have enough personnel to fully uh staff it out and so um this decision to you know draft is designed to uh expand the um you know the manpower base for um for the israeli defense force but these people don't want to fight, and it will cause far more problems than it will solve. Switching gears to Ukraine, is it on its last leg? Yeah, I mean, it's been on its last leg for a while.

I mean, the Ukrainians, you know, again, we just have to give credit where credit is due. Every Russian officer I've spoken to, every Russian soldier that's fighting them, has never said anything bad about the fighting capabilities of the Ukrainian soldiers. In fact, many of them are just shocked about the fact that the Ukrainians will die before they surrender. They make the fighting very, very difficult, especially in an urban environment where traditionally if you had people down in a basement and they know they're going to die, the white flag will come out and you can bring them out. The Ukrainians say, no, you got to come in and kill us. And then the Russians do, but this takes time, it complicates things.

The Russians are in a very tough fight, but the Ukrainians have reached the point of no return. They can't undo the damage that's been done. They're going to lose this war. They can't change that. There's nothing the West can do to change that. So now the question is just how how do you want is to uh ukraine to collapse that's the big question right now is at what at what point in time does the west step in um when will the ukrainian government be ready to admit um what needs to be done to resolve this situation because

some some very difficult decisions have to be made but they can't be avoided and they're going to have to be made soon such such as, you know, giving all the territory to Russia that Russia has demanded so far, demilitarization, things of that nature. The incursion into Kursk, now universally recognized as a disaster and the last vestiges of forces, americans in there about to be eliminated i mean i think it's recognized by everybody as a strategic um mistake by by ukraine they made a gambit they made a gamble um it's not unreasonable some of the things they were thinking they just failed to execute uh properly the russians failed to respond the way that the many people had thought they would respond and um the end result is that Ukraine's strategic reserves have been effectively taken off the board.

Twenty, twenty three thousand, thirty thousand well-trained, well-equipped, highly motivated troops no longer exist. Chris, do we have Victoria Nuland on with Rachel Maddow? Oh, there's a combination for you, Scott. He's at it again. This time he's not even trying to hide his hand, and he has far more sophisticated tools. You know, his AI is better, so he can make these fake videos. He has done things like spend $10 million trying to buy American influencers and get them parroting his lines and not even know it's happening.

But he's also got a brand new, very, very powerful tool, which is Elon Musk and X. You know, in 2020, the social media companies worked hard with the U.S. government to try to do content moderation, to try to catch this stuff as it was happening. But this time we have Elon Musk talking directly to the Kremlin and ensuring that every time the Russians put out something like this, it gets 5 million views on X before anybody can catch it. So it's quite dangerous. Although I do think the American electorate has gotten more sophisticated and more savvy about this stuff.

Vladimir Putin give a damn about the outcome of the American presidential election? Well, they monitor. Of course they care. The American president is one of the world's most powerful leaders. And as a leader of a nation that possesses nuclear forces that are targeted against Russia, of course Russia cares. But Russia isn't going to try and change. First of all, they're not, as far as Russia is concerned, America is the problem, not a particular American president.

You know, Anatoly Antonov, when I spoke to him, said that from his perspective, the most important thing is predictability. He doesn't care who is the president as long as the policies of the United States are predictable. And while we didn't get into too many details, the implication was that Donald Trump is a very unpredictable person. So for all these people out there thinking that the Russians want Donald Trump, no, I think the opposite is the truth, that the Russians actually would have

preferred Joe Biden. Kamala Harris is an unknown, so there's an element of unpredictability there. But back when it was Biden-Trump, I think the reality is that the Russians were like, well, we'll take Biden. That doesn't mean that it's going to solve any problems, but at least we'll be able to have predictable foreign policy and be able to take our time and put together something. But Donald Trump, is he going to be our friend? Is he going to be our enemy? Is he going to nuke us? Is he going to have a treaty?

We don't know. It's very difficult to put together. But the idea that Putin's going to come in here and try and sway the American people is absurd in the extreme. It just isn't happening. I mean, and the other thing is, you can tell, you know, when you get Rachel Maddow and Nuland together or anything coming from the Biden administration, as soon as they bring up, you know, sophisticated AI and biden administration's uh posture for instance the things that i've done in russia to bring information back and to uh push back on some uh you know notions that the that may exist in the biden administration rather than saying no no no

no here's here's our counter information here's our better ideas here's our better information what they do is they say no no that's r that's Russian propaganda. No, it's not. It's facts. It's fact-based. They call it Russian propaganda because they don't have the ability to articulate a counter-argument, to put out opposing facts. That's what we're seeing with Elon Musk. They're afraid of Elon Musk because he's putting out facts that they can't challenge. They're afraid to challenge. What is the stability of the Zelensky government, or what is its life expectancy? Look, I think we're going to see a very difficult winter for Ukraine. And I think what we're going to find is if Zelensky survives this winter, he won't survive long into the spring.

There is an absolute need for change in Ukraine. And the Ukrainian people are starting to recognize that. And Zelensky is rapidly being seen by many, including his supporters, as the problem, not the solution. And so I would be surprised if he lasts the winter, but even if he does, he's not going to go deep into the spring. There will have to be peace. The Ukrainians will insist on it because they can't continue doing what they're doing. Scott Ritter, thank you very much, my dear friend. Much appreciated. We'll talk to you again soon. All the best. Thanks.

Of course. Tonight, of course, most of us will be watching the election returns, but tomorrow we'll be here, 11 o'clock in the morning, Colonel McGregor, two in the afternoon, Professor Mearsheimer, three in the afternoon, Phil Giraldi. Four in the afternoon, Aaron Maté. Five in the afternoon, Professor Sachs. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.