Judging Freedom - Team Biden Antagonizing Putin - Alastair Crooke fmr Brit ambassador

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, May 25th, 2023. It's four o'clock in the afternoon here in Zurich, Switzerland, and the same time in Rome, Italy, from which our esteemed and most valued friend Alistair Crook joins us now. Alistair, it's a pleasure to be in the same time zone with you. We're not really that far apart geographically. Thank you very much for accommodating my schedule and joining us. There's a huge number of people lining up, waiting to hear what you have to say. Before we get to Ukraine, let's talk about some bigger issues and start with the G7. If I had to describe my impression of the G7 that just finished meeting, including with the Prime Minister of Italy in Hiroshima, Japan,

it wouldn't be diplomacy, it would be bellicosity. Would you agree with my choice of that word? I think it had the subtext to it, apart from being, if you like, setting up a sort of battle space for narratives, was really to set narratives. And so we had narrative set in all the areas, some trade and commerce and everything that were essentially anti-Chinese.

It was an exercise in setting up a complex narrative, changing the language from decoupling with China to de-risking with China. It's only a disguise. It's the same thing that is coming in a sense. But really the importance of this is because most of the rest of the world don't see that China is a real threat to the United States, that it's an antagonist of the United States. They actually see that the problems that the US has do not come stem from China or even Russia, but are basically internal problems. If you like,

basically structural problems within the United States. This is a threat to the United States. The internal threat is the real threat rather than China. And that's understood by in the Pacific region and elsewhere. What was the American goal with respect to China? Let's take Italy, a country in which you're living at the present time, as an example. What did Joe Biden and his acolytes attempt to accomplish with the new Italian prime minister? I don't think they succeeded in getting any arms out of her, but what was their overall goal, say, with respect to China? Well, there's always been a close connection with China, particularly in the north of Italy. And Italy was the first country in Europe

that signed up to the Belt and Road Initiative. And this is basically from Turin in the north. And the main aim is to stop that and to block it. It's part of the setting of the scene for Europe to move towards, if you like, a sanctioned framework against China. They're not calling it that at the moment. That's why the narratives were so important, like calling it de-risking rather than actual decoupling from China. But essentially, the United States is pivoting to China. And of course, it wants Europe to go along with it. But Europeans have reservations. So

there's a lot of pressure on them now to go along with it slowly, slowly. So the Americans talk about a thaw. Biden said, I mean, it was rather paradoxically said, I expect a thaw. Just after the Chinese had complained that this was an exercise in slandering China and smearing the country, he said, oh, but I think there's going to be a thaw coming. I mean, all of that is about trying to prepare the ground for the Europeans to go along with the program, to say, look, it's not that bad. It won't be, it'll be all right. But in fact, it's all about preparing the ground for pulling the Europeans more into an anti-Chinese soft posture. Well, if the Belt and Road Initiative, basically an easing of trade between the two countries, is going to benefit the Italian

economy, which can certainly use that kind of benefit a what does the american government care and b why would the italian government care what the american government cares about the italian relationship to china is this all american hubris american exceptionalism all over again we're going to tell everybody else how to live yeah essentially it is wanting that the europeans you know have got to line up they've got to be uh in you know on side they've got to take the narrative they go with the narrative no derogation from the narrative they've got to stay with it and they're going to say this is a unified Western position against China, and therefore it must be right and valid that all the states are opposed to it. But, of course, for Europe, it's a disaster because its business model was based on cheap energy from Russia and the sale of more advanced goods, manufactured goods, high-tech, high-end engineering goods to China.

And if both of those are going, they're starting to slip, like chips are now being stopped. Netherlands is producing high-end chips. All of that has been stopped on the grounds that that is benefiting China. Let me stick with Italy for just a moment. President Putin famously, with a little bit of sarcasm but a lot of truth, referred about two months ago to the U.S. still occupying Germany, as of course it famously or infamously did in the years immediately following World War II. I wonder if he would say the same thing about the U.S. occupying Italy.

Here it is telling the Italian government, with whom I can trade, there are 100 American military installations, 100 on the Italian peninsula, including one of which has nuclear weapons. I'm sure Mr. Putin knows all this. And all the drones that were sort of hovering around Ukraine come from Sicily in the south of Italy. The big base, the American base there is where all of the drones, the surveillance drones go to harass Russia around the Black Sea. So yes, it's like that very much. It is very controlled. I mean, and it was from the end of the war, because the Americans were particularly worried that Italy might slide across to more communist posture. So they intervened very obviously, still do intervene. How badly has the US and Western sanctions on Russia failed to damage

the Russian economy? Completely. I mean, there's just one simple answer to that. It's completely failed. Russia is one of the few economies that is going to show some growth, not a lot of growth, but it's going to show some growth. It has very little debt. Its economy is doing okay. Its inflation is almost zero, down to very little, whereas we have an inflation food inflation at 20 in europe uh it's it's growing it's expanding it's selling its energy it's gas and it's all comfortably to new customers in the east and i have to say this and i i speak i mean with a little authority on this is that i think that the europeans may have a nasty shock if they think at some point they'll go back to Russia and say, oh, well, now that Ukraine is over, can we have our

energy back? Because the answer will be, I'm very sorry, it's now sold elsewhere, you won't have any. And I'm pretty sure that's what's going to happen. I don't think it's going to come back to Europe. It's a major disaster. I mean, Russia was expected to have collapsed by now, or at least to have been in a deep recession. Look at the morning's or the day's papers, as I know you do, and the websites. The news out of Germany is Germany's in a recession. Of course. And did you see a peep in any of those articles? Now, I only read the articles in English. I know you're multi-linguistic.

But did you see a peep in any of those articles about the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline? Nothing, nothing. It's just vanished from the media. But they also, there's nothing about, you never see any questions. When you are, when people, when the newspapers talk about inflation, it's Putin's inflation. It's not the fact that Europe chose to sanction Russia, chose to forego Russian energy. It did that because it thought it would hurt Russia more badly by avoiding the sales of its energy to Italy and to Europe.

So it imposed its ban on itself and now we don't have it. And what I can say, I think reasonably authoritatively, is that if they turn around and ask for it back, it's not going to be available to them. What is Germany using to replace its steady, welcomed stream of inexpensive energy that used to flow through the pipeline until the CIA and the American Navy destroyed it? They're replacing it with liquefied natural gas when they can get it at about seven or eight times the cost of the pipeline gas that they were getting from Russia. So a huge increase in the cost. And many, many small, there was an article just recently in the German press about how many small companies are finally deciding that they're no longer competitive

and they're going out of business. But the bigger companies are doing something different. They're either moving their industrial production to the United States or to China in the hope of getting a more competitive base from which to operate. Moving closer to Ukraine, were you surprised when President Biden changed his mind on providing F-16 jet fighters? These, of course, were manufactured in the United States, sold with American government permission to foreign countries on the condition that the foreign countries couldn't give them away or resell them without American permission. The American government has now given permission to those countries, Germany among them, to send the fighter jets to Ukraine.

Before we get into whether or not this is futile, were you surprised that President Biden changed his mind? No, I think it was. I think we've all seen it coming. We were expecting that to come. I wasn't surprised by that. I was a little bit more surprised that no one in Europe stood up and said, please, no, thank you. Because what this means, I mean, apart from the futility, but quite what it means is, as I think one of your contributors, Colonel Davis, has pointed out, there will be none of these jets reaching, none of these fighters

reaching Ukraine this year. They'll take a year to get there, which means that the war has been extended casually. A chance, oh yeah, okay, we, you know 40 or 50 of these jets But what it does is it takes us down another step of escalation It takes us to closer and closer to forever war in Russia Which some people not everyone and there's a lot strong lobby against it in the United States I know but there are strong forces that would like to see this turn into a forever war, a sort of quagmire on Russia's

doorstep that will drain it of resources and be a festering wound for years to come. So, I mean, I don't think this is going to happen because Russia is not going to let it happen. Here's President Biden about 13 months ago commenting on the dangers of sending, I think he says, tanks, trains and planes. I don't know what he meant by trains, but that was the language he used. The key phrase are the last three words of what he says. War against Ukraine was never be a victory. Democrats are rising to meet the moment, relying, rallying the world on the side of peace and security. We're showing a strength and we'll never falter.

But look, the idea, the idea that we're going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews. Just understand, and don't kid yourself no matter what you all say, that's called World War III, okay? Now he's come 180 degrees from that. It's not based on intelligence reports. We know that from our intel folks. It's certainly not based on reports from the ground. We know that from the secret documents that were revealed showing the government knows that Ukraine is losing. It must just be purely politics. This neocon urge to continue a fruitless, without an off-ramp war against Russia. I think there's another aspect which was so apparent during the G7, which is we are not losing.

There's absolute insistence on saying, no, you know, whatever you see, Bahmut, whatever it is, we're winning. We are stuck on this sort of hubristic, if you like, delusion that must be sustained. So I think, you know, as Bahmut completely fell to Russian troops, to the Wagner troops, there had to be something to show we were not losing. We're still winning. And so he made this gesture. Of course, it probably won't be Americans in the cockpit. I don't know who it will be. And also it will be, as you rightly said it won't won't change anything in in in the war at all except it will

extend it and it will also increase the war it will be another stage in the process and at the same time we just had um i think it was um either sullivan or blinken i'm not sure quite which of them but repeating and they've said it before, of course you're allowed to fire long-range missiles at Crimea. Of course that's all right because that's part of Ukraine. We have no problems with that. All of these are taking us closer to closer and why I take this so seriously in the G7 outcome of this is that really it means that the West, and particularly the European Union, is incapable of providing a political solution for Ukraine. Their present solutions are pie in the sky, which means just simply accepting Zelensky's terms,

and that without a solution, what can Russia do? It has one choice, which is to go all the way. It'll go as far, first of all, halfway and see again if the West is prepared to take things seriously and accept the Russian terms. If it doesn't, well, then, you know, we're going to see more bloodshed and it'll extend even further. But they are creating the circumstances that push Russia into this position. As bellicose as President Biden has been and the G7 has been, do you have reason to believe that

the Americans have been whispering into Zelensky's ear in Hiroshima and elsewhere, it's time to sit down and talk, it's time to have serious negotiation, and Zelensky has enough, I'll use your word, hubris to say to his masters and suppliers, no. You know, there are, I mean, we've, Cy Hersh, who I know quite well, I mean, we've seen Cy Hersh, who I know quite well, I mean, has said something along these lines. And we certainly see the division in the United States and that there are those that are saying that. And most importantly, because it's often used as a vehicle for messaging, the Financial Times came out last week saying very clearly

that American sources say that the war has got to end very soon. Otherwise, it won't be possible to continue the support. By September, they said. That's the time limit. By September. And then, quite casually, Biden gives the green light to F-16s, which immediately implies September's finish. It's going to go on for to the end of the year, at least if he goes through with it. And the Europeans, to my surprise and disappointment,

just grabbed it and said, oh, this is great. Let's do this. Because they are just so beholden. They just don't seem to be able to say no to the United States. It's just remarkable. They say they want don't seem to be able to say no to the United States. It's just remarkable. They say they want an early end to this war. And what do they do about it? Nothing except proposed ideas like a frozen conflict, which is a non-starter,

because they are still in this delusion. We're not losing. We're winning. We can't allow our narrative to be weakened in any way because it's the only narrative. This is the narrative that must fit and has got to fit for the global world. The global world order, the new world order, has to be the only paradigm, the only reality for the rest of the world.

And, of course, there's a whole stampede going on. I mean, we had it just the previous week, the week earlier, when we had the Arab League, which went multipolar, completely went multipolar. Right. And the arrival of Assad was not his reincorporation in the Arab League. It was a symbol of the change by the Arab League towards a multipolar world, which was much more important. And it was an act

of iconoclasm against the Western hegemony. And this is the same elsewhere. In Africa, you're getting the same. There is a tide sweeping and it just doesn't penetrate through to our leaderships. They don't see it because it's become so easy just to stay on narrative. They've got the mainstream media repeating the narrative endlessly. When you have that, you don't have to argue a case. You don't have to think very carefully. And it doesn't matter if you lie or if you exaggerate because the mainstream media will just cover it up or give it to the board. So they don't think. And therefore, there's no, you know, they don't even think about a solution, even though it is important.

So I think it's a disaster. A couple of more topics. I know Turkey is about to endure round two of its presidential elections, but is Turkey in hot water with the rest of NATO for either cozying up too close to President Putin or actually selling military equipment to him? You know, Turkey's always in hot water with NATO one way or another. But Turkey, you know, it's the largest armed force in the whole region. And it has air bases. Its geostrategic positioning is so important that, you know, even though the NATO people grind their teeth, I mean, they can't get rid of Turkey. There's no provision in NATO for sacking someone

for these elements. And I don't think Erdogan has any interest in really leaving NATO. It's quite a useful foil for him. It's a useful, if you like, lever he can play in his very complex maneuvers of geopolitics, and he is a great maneuverer in geopolitics. Going from a large country to a small one, we are hearing in the West, although of course I'm in Europe this week, of rumors of a coup in Belarus by the Belarus military, which of course will be supported by the Polish military and opposed by Russia. Here we go again, the Poles with their itchy trigger fingers. Do you hear this? I've seen the story, but I can't tell you that there's really any truth.

What I don't see is I haven't seen any sort of very strong Russian reaction. I mean, you remember before when there was a threatened coup. I mean, it was at midnight. The Russians sent forces and airplanes and secured the whole area just like that. It just happened. I mean, it was an extraordinary rapid deployment, which would make NATO quite green with envy. I mean, it just happened and went very rapidly. I think if we see that sort of thing happening, if we see redeployment of Russia, because there's a sort of very close security arrangement between Russia and Belarus now. And so I think, I mean, when we see something taking, planes taking off or forces deploying,

there are already about 50,000, I think, Russian forces inside Belarus. But if we see more of that, then we should take it more seriously. But at the moment, I haven't seen that. I mean, of course, all around the area in the in the what I call the stance, the the, you know, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and all of those big efforts by America to try and produce a reaction and to block the Belt and Road. I mean, they have embassies with 500, 800 staff in places like Tajikistan or Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan, huge embassies there. But those states, I mean, you know, I think it's just the obvious geopolitics.

You have Russia on one side and you have China on another side. Where are you going to position yourself? Right. Alistair, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you from the States. I will be in the States early next week. Thank you.

Thanks for joining us. More as we get it, my friends. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.