Judging Freedom - The World is Shifting: Russia, North Korea, China, Ukraine w/Alastair Crooke fmr Brit ambassador

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

The World is Shifting: Russia, North Korea, China, Ukraine  w/Alastair Crooke fmr Brit ambassadorSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Pardon me. Today is Thursday, September 14th, 2023. Alistair Crook joins us now. Alistair, I want to talk to you about your recent writings on American hegemony and how that's coming back to bite the West. But before we do, you and I have not, before we get there, you and I have not talked about 9-11. And I think from our previous conversations off air, you told me that you actually met Osama bin Laden, and you actually once lived in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which is where he was when the American military murdered him. Tell us of your observations and interactions with Osama bin Laden, and Tell us whether or not you think

his organization was sophisticated enough to have pulled off 9-11 on its own. Okay, well, I didn't have many, but I met him and I remember him as a very reserved figure, quite intellectual, tall, silent, absorbing everything, not particularly charismatic, but he had a presence. There's no doubt he had a presence. But his organization, and don't forget, he came from the Saudi elite. I mean, he was very much the top. I mean, his family was one of the principal families in Saudi Arabia. And so he was very elite and rather distant from what was actually going on. But the groups that came, I mean, many of the people that were sent there, and there was a Saudi prince who would arrive once a month and write checks to al-Qaeda

and the other groups through the Services Bureau, which was based in Peshawar. And I was in Peshawar at that time. But when they started, and I saw these Wahhabis coming in at the time, many of them were people that the Saudis wanted to get out. They were troublemakers that they wanted out of the kingdom. So they sent them to Afghanistan to go and fight and be killed there at the time. But really, I mean, you know, they knew nothing. They were considered to be very stupid. I mean, there was a joke amongst the Afghans, you know, which is the most stupid of the two, donkey or a Wahhabi? And it was always the Wahhabi who was supposed to be most stupid. They were regarded as very inferior by the Afghans, unable to mount even a real operation.

Do you believe the American government is telling the truth when it claims that Osama bin Laden was the mastermind, the orchestrator, the financier behind the attacks here on 9-11? I saw nothing about the organization at that time. I emphasize that I saw absolutely nothing that would suggest they had the capacity or the brainpower to mount such a complicated operation as 9-11, which was very complicated. It required a lot of pre-planning and organization to mount that sort of operation. They could do nothing like that in Afghanistan. Nothing. Did you once live in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the place where bin Laden was murdered? And if you did, can you tell us what it was like? Is it a civilian area where you can just come and go as you see fit?

Well, it's what is called a hill station in Pakistan. It's not down in the hot plains, and it's where the military go. And so it's entirely a military station. It's run by the Pakistani army. It's just full of the military where they sort of see out the hot months there and everything that serves the military, you know, the food staffs and all of the services that are big military encampment. But of course, being a military contunement, I don't know if your audience is aware of a contunement means a sort of military restricted area. A military contunement, I mean, you know, it was impossible for someone like bin Laden to have been there. He was under arrest.

He was obviously being kept by the military there in safekeeping. He wouldn't have been able to move a foot out of that. And so all the story about the killing of him was entirely made up. I knew the Pakistanis had told the Americans at that time, the Pakistanis had said, okay, we'll do a deal on this, but what is so essential for us, it mustn't appear that we have given him to you, because that would ruin our relations with many groups,

Islamic groups in the area. So you've got to make it appear as if it's entirely an American operation, and we are taken completely by surprise by it. So even that was fake. So the idea that he was sort of orchestrating out of Torah Bora something as complicated as 9-11, later, of course, much later than what I'm talking about, just never seemed to gel for me. I just didn't think they...

And so when I hear, and I heard you talking about it the other day with Ray McGovern, I mean, you know, this seemed to me entirely a government organized, whichever government, but the multi-government perhaps organized exercise. And, you know, there was no connection with Yemen when I was there from the beginning. These were sort of, as I say, the near-do-goods of Saudi Arabia who were kicked out to die in Afghanistan. It was a way of getting rid of them at that stage. I mean, they weren't sophisticated people at all. Last question on this.

Do you think the Navy SEALs murdered him, or do you think the Pakistan military did, or do you think the Pakistan military just looked the other way and let the SEALs come in? Yeah, they just looked the other way. And one of the helicopters crashed they couldn't even land it properly i'm afraid it was a bit messed up operationally just went in i heard about it afterwards i mean they handed them over you know this was a quid pro quo for the americans because the pakistanis want something in connection with Afghanistan from America. And the deal was, we'll provide you with bin Laden for a show, you know, assassination.

At the time of bin Laden's assassination, was he a danger and a threat to the West? He was a complete prisoner of the Pakistanis. He wouldn't have been able to move at all. I mean, you know, he was surrounded by about 3,000 Pakistani army. I mean, you know, he wouldn't have been able to move. I mean, when I was there, it was only for the summer. But I mean, the Pakistani military watched everything, everything. There were no real civilians in this town.

That's what a military cantonment is. It's just like a sort of military town. Got it. Very, very… And they have bin Laden sitting in a military town for years. Very illuminating, Alastair. Let's switch gears to your recent piece on American hegemony. What is the basis for America's belief in its own primacy and hegemony that it can spread democracy? I say in quotes, I think it really spreads violence, but whatever it's spreading, it can spread it with impunity around the world. Where does this come from? I think it comes from a deep sense of exceptionalism. I mean, it obviously does have some roots in, you know, in the Calvinist and puritanical tradition of being the elect and being of a special, having a special mission and a special task in life.

But I think this sort of expansionism was really the basis of sort of holding the United States together. It was always, if you like, a heterogeneous grouping of people who've come from Italy, from all over the world at that stage. And the sort of expansion became more and more necessary as a sort of binding to keep the United States as a people together, to keep the community reaching back to the old values. But at the same time, its mission, its sort of moral cause was something that was important to keep the country together, I think. And how do you extrapolate the values that underlie this moral cause to the wish of the American policy establishment, particularly the neocons, of separating Ukraine from Russia? Example, do the neocons believe that Russia can only succeed as Russia with a neutral

Ukraine or a subjugated to Russia Ukraine? Or do they want to use Ukraine as a battering ram to drive President Putin from office? You know, when I was in Afghanistan, working on the borders of Afghanistan, before the Russian had left Afghanistan, of course, all that was happening was really a book, if you like, the heartland to come together. That is Central Asia come together as a political institution. Okay, let me just tell you, you're speaking of Zbigniew Brzezinski, no longer living. He was the national security advisor and foreign policy guru under President Carter. Yeah, and he was the one who recommended to Carter to send in the Islamists into Afghanistan in order to turn Afghanistan into a quagmire for Russia, well, Soviet Union at that time.

But that was his policy, and he wrote that paper about it. He recommended to Carter to send the Islamists into Afghanistan with whom we would eventually have a war and which George Bush would invade and the government would occupy for 20 years. Exactly. He recommended that the Islamists go in, and this was the start of that relationship with Saudi Arabia, but supporting the Islamist movements to undermine, which was a very sort, 97, I think it was, or 96, he was writing that the key piece in keeping for America to keep the heartland divided, he who rules the heartland rules the world, was the theme of the book. And that must never be allowed because the United States would be

damaged by that. And so his argument was Ukraine was the key, the key to this process. And he put in his book, he wrote very clearly, if Ukraine is with Russia, Russia will become a great heartland power. But without it, it won't. It can't become a great power. So even then, all that time ago, the neocons and Brzezinski, at the time, as you say, the National Security Advisor was very clear. The heartland must never take shape. And furthermore, Ukraine is the pivotal piece. If it goes towards Russia and China, then there will be a powerful heartland. If we can pull it away, then it won't be one. So Brzezinski says he who rules the heartland rules the world.

Yes. And Henry Kissinger, his predecessor by two presidents, said, correct me if I'm wrong, he who controls money controls the world. Who's right, Alistair? Or is there some third vision of this? I mean, of course, you know, this goes back to the old, old geopolitics that we've been struggling with, the heartland versus the naval past, the Atlanticist past. And it was always thought that the naval past, of which Europe and Britain and America were great examples, had to not allow the land mass to form, if you like, a strong political union together. But Kissinger was wrong, because he just said money,

he who has money, who rules the monetary system, rules the world. But of course, what we've now seen, and Putin has sort of proved that doctrine was wrong, because it's shown that it's not money alone that's sufficient. It's raw materials. It is energy, people. It is the whole technology. These are the things that allow you to rule the heartland, not just money alone. But America then invested heavily on Kissinger's. I mean, Kissinger was the architect of the petrodollar with the Saudis to create the system whereby the dollar would be the most powerful hegemonic currency, if you like, and a sort of, if you like, a quiet way of creating colonialism to replace the old style of colonialism of military force. Has raw materials, energy, and a passionate population base And a manufacturing base, too. Correct. Enabled Putin, A, to defeat or overcome or neutralize the effect of American sanctions, and B, elevate the existence of BR which is quite striking, which I regard as sort of egregious mistakes here by Washington in the sense with one. propelled them into making changes, economic changes, becoming self-sufficiency, modernizing

their economy, making it, keeping it sort of self-sufficient so it wasn't dependent on the West, and that has been effect. So the sanctions have now actually had a reverse effect. It's weakened America's ally, Europe, quite noticeably. We've been weakened by the sanctions on Russia, and Russia has been strengthened. But I would also argue at the same time that it is this sort of siege of China, this tech, high-powered tech, if you like, microchips and the best of tech on China, is doing the same to America. And we've seen that with China suddenly producing a smartphone with a 7nm small chip in it against all the expectations. It was thought the Huawei was finished by the isolation and the sanctions putting on it.

Actually, it spurred the Chinese to move quicker than anyone had imagined in terms of getting down to an advanced microchip equivalent pretty well to anything that the West has had, or within a year it will be, certainly. So it's having the opposite effect, and what I'm saying is it's actually going to constrain Western technology, not increase it, because it's turned it into a competition and a siege. But who's sieging who in the end of the day? I mean, it may end up by being China. You know, people will say, oh, well, will we take our chips from America if we're possibly going to be sanctioned for taking anything? Even the machinery that make chips, is sanctioned at the moment.

So maybe we're better off just buying it from China. So I don't think it's going to work very well. And the consequence of this now is we're facing a rising pressure from the global world and the global South and BRICS and the remainder of G20 and the African Union now come forward and they feel they have the clout, the financial clout, and they have the desire to say, we want to place a top table now. We want to control. We're not going to let you decide the financial.

We want a complete reform of Bretton Woods, of the financial structures, and WTO, and the World Bank, and IMF, and all of this. We want to be voting members. We want to change it. And this is what started in these two meetings, the BRICS meeting and then the G20. And the G20 finally had to concede on this and say, yes. And I saw now Blinken is talking about the old world order is over, and the United States has to sort of shape the new order because it's all changing. Well, the pressure is coming. And my point is really that in many ways these rash decisions to put sanctions on to Russia and to, if you like, lay a technical siege on China, have actually weakened the United States to such an extent that it's open to those pressures

and may ultimately find themselves into a financial crisis, which is very difficult to emerge from because they've allowed themselves, I mean, in effect, I'm saying that we in the West have trapped ourselves into a situation where now Russia and China has the heft, the power, together with the global south, to insist. And it's going to push us. It's going to be very difficult. I don't know what's going to happen. But I think in the next few years, we may even see this at the UN General Assembly next

week, this pressure starting. Brazil will make the first speech. Brazil thinks it should be on the Security Council at the General Assembly. India thinks it should, too, be there. So we're moving into an era of considerable change, but also economic and structural change. The sanctions don't work. The sanctions have hurt the West. Europe is borrowing money to give munitions to Ukraine. The United States is borrowing money to give weaponry to Ukraine. Enough Republicans in the House of Representatives are opposed to any further aid that it looks like it can't get through Congress. I'm going to ask you after we run this clip question, Alistair, has it been worth it?

And do the elites have an answer for that? But before you answer, I want you to watch President Zelensky saying three things. There will be no happy ending to this war. Beware the domino theory. If Putin occupies Ukraine, where will he go next? And this is not our war. It's a common war. Take a listen. It's not the movie with the happy end. We will not have happy end. We lost a lot of people. No happy end. That we have to recognize it. A victory that's only one thing that can bring the occupation of our land. It means not to give possibility for Russia to attack other countries, Baltic, Poland, and then to bring all of us back, you know, by this aggression back to USSR. We don't want. That's only position for this.

Victory is not happiness. Victory is only one possibility to a life. And people in the West have to recognize it. Not our values, common values. Not our war, common war. We pay the highest price, it's true. And I don't want to repeat these words. Everybody knows this word, but they can not only know. People in the West have to feel it. People in the West have to feel it. Do the European elites agree with that? Do the European elites agree that it's a common war? Do the European elites believe that the destruction of Nord Stream, the cold winter coming, the failure of the sanctions, the imposition of economic hardship on themselves? Do they believe that all of this was worth it for a stalemate in Ukraine?

You know, I think they got caught up in the enthusiasm for it. And I think they thought that they were going to, you know, the European Union was at last going to play the role of a great power at top table together with Washington. And they got caught up in their overenthusiasm. I think it's becoming evident. I mean, it's becoming so clear that it was not just not worth it. This was a terrible mistake. I mean, what he says is just a complete travesty. I mean, the Ukrainian, particularly one faction that dominates his government, the ultra-nationalists, saw the Maidan events and Wakhala as an opportunity to land a blow on Russia and also to suppress

the Donbass and Luhansk separate republics. And this is what they tried to do, and this is what they did. It wasn't that. And remember, Putin all that time was not trying to take them away from Ukraine. He was trying to get Donbass for seven years and Lugansk to stay in Ukraine, but with a certain degree of autonomy and decision making and to keep their language and culture. At the same time, they would be Ukrainians and part of the Ukrainian state. He was not asking for that. And is he going on to conquer Paris and Berlin? It's nonsense, just rubbish. He's never, I mean, Putin, let's be very clear, and I've heard him say this myself. I mean, I've listened to him live for an hour, two, three hours on the subject.

And he is very, was very pro-European. At that time, I remember one time going to a meeting in Moscow, and all the talk was about greater Europe, about Vladivostok down to Lisbon was going to be one. This was the talk that was going on, and there were meetings about how to bring this back. It was not about conquering Europe. It was working with Europe and being European. And so what he's presenting is a total nonsense.

Alistair, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for your deep and profound analysis. We look forward to having you back on the program next week. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. There you have it, my friends, another brilliant analysis from one of the smartest people I know, and I'm privileged to be able to pick his brain with you and for you. Later today, Matthew Ho and Karen Kwiatkowski

to a retired U.S. military, as you know, both harshly, harshly critical of American military policy. And I'm going to ask them, these war games, have you read about the war games? Probably not. War games that the United States Navy and the British Navy are playing in the Black Sea, are they worth it? And are they intended to poke the bear? Meantime, we're up to 199,000 subscriptions. We will top, thanks to you, 200,000 today. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!