Judging Freedom - War Mongers in DC - Scott Horton

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023. It's about five minutes after three o'clock in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. Scott Horton, my dear friend from Antiwar.com and now a weekly member of the Judging Freedom family joins us. Scott, always a pleasure. Thank you for coming here today. Thanks, sir. You know, I was being interviewed on somebody else's podcast the other day and I thought of you and I was blaming a lot of our woes on the forever continuous war attitude of the neocons in both parties, in the State Department, in the Defense Department, in the government, in American culture, in American milieu. And somebody said, well, what do we do about it? And I said, ask Scott Horton. I mean, what do we do about it?

This is almost self-fulfilling. The members of Congress in whose districts these military bases are, which employ a lot of civilians, voters, and in whose districts the military industrial complex exists, which employs a lot of civilians, will always vote for more guns. The American intelligence community has dirt on the vast majority of members of Congress. Speaker of the House McCarthy just finished addressing the Israeli Knesset and goes to a press conference and an English-speaking Russian reporter said, are you going to stand by your statement made six months ago that we're not giving President Zelensky a blank check. And he scolded the guy and said, no, I don't stand by it. We're going to give them whatever they want, whatever they need.

Why don't your people get the heck out of Ukraine within five minutes? I don't know if this is planned or not. Mitch McConnell came out with a tweet that basically mimicked what Speaker McCarthy said. Okay, my question is too long. Roger Ailes used to say the best questions have five words. What about this? What about this? Is it an attitude we'll never get rid of? Does it take American boys in body bags to get rid of the forever war, American exceptionalism will kill whoever we want attitude amongst the people that write our laws and spend our tax dollars? Well, it's a great question, Judge. I'm a Ron Paul guy, and he always just said education is the key, and that ultimately the people, even in the Soviet Union, ultimately the people got the government that they demanded or the lack of one.

And so, you know, there's no question what you say about the war party ruling in the Republicans and the Democrats. There are a lot of anti-war leftists and progressives and liberals, but they don't rule the party. And there are a lot of America firsters on the right, but they're not in charge either. And so we, you know, very much have a Joe Biden, John McCain type, George W. Bush type, you know, uniparty when it comes to foreign policy. You know, on the other hand, the American people are absolutely sick and tired of this. I mean, led by the soldiers, in fact, and the veterans, the polls have shown the majority of the American people against the war on terrorism and overall against foreign interventionism and wanting to come home America overall, you know, in attitude since the early Obama years, since, you know,

the still the 2000s before the teens. And the problem is it's just, it's too low of a priority oftentimes because there's so much other stuff going on. So I don't know if McCarthy and Speaker McCarthy and Senator McConnell were speaking from their own intellectual honesty or they had just looked at polls which told them to continue pressing in that direction. Because I want to point out to you a very recent poll touted by, of all people, the Brookings Institute, showing that those who think Russia is failing have gone from 46% down to 37% in a year. Those who think Ukraine is winning have gone down from 42% to 26% in a year. This should send some sort of a message to these Republicans before they authorize another 20 or 30 billion for Joe, old Joe, to spend however he wants, shouldn't it? Well, you know, I'll tell you, I'm writing this book and I've been reading a lot of Washington Post and New York Times, I hate to say, but that's who the government talks to the most. So you got to read a lot of that. And, you know, even last fall when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley was saying, geez, I think that we got a pretty good score there in

Harkiv and we ought to look at negotiating now and quit while we're only this far behind and not worse that at least in the post and and a few different you know places i've read where part of the consideration seems to be that geez we lost the house and there are these anti-war republicans not McCarthy, but there are, you know, Gates and some of these others who are against it. And it does matter what, and, you know, one more thing about that judge is, um, the, there's this really important Rand corporation study from 2019 called extending Russia as in overextending Russia, how to provoke them into overexpansion, right? Like in the Afghanistan doctrine of the 1980s and that kind of thing,

what we're trying to do to them now, really. And it's all about how to provoke them in all different ways. But one of the things that really stands out in that study is that throughout it, they say over and over again, on the other hand, German public opinion polls show that they won't stand for that, or British polls show that they won't stand for that, or American polls show that they are really not interested in doing that, and that we have to take that into account. And so I would even say it's naive on their part in a way that really they probably could disregard us more than they feel like they need to. But they seem concerned with whether we support what they're doing or whether we're especially whether we're dead set against it.

You know, Gary, do we have Secretary Austin being questioned by Senator Wicker? See if you can put that up. I think Scott has seen it, but I want to follow it after some commentary with General Cavoli. I don't know if you've seen General Cavoli. This will open your eyes. So we'll just keep talking. If Gary has it, it'll pop up.

It'll cut us off because it has volume in it. Are you getting it, Gary? Yeah, it looks like he's getting it. So Secretary Austin basically testifying, Scott, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the one once famously chaired by John McCain for many years when the Republicans ran the Senate, and basically saying, well, don't worry. Ukrainians are in good shape. We're going to give them the support they need, and we're optimistic about their chances.

Now, at the time he said this, under oath, he was aware of the contents and authenticity and accuracy of the documents that the government says Jack Teixeira released, which, of course course say the opposite. Gary, do we have it? Just let me know. With regard to your optimism about Ukraine having the upper hand, that is what you told me yesterday. It is. Now, Ukrainians have inflicted significant casualties on the Russians and they have depleted their inventory of armored vehicles in a way that no one would have ever imagined. And so now we see Russia reaching for T-54s and T-55 tanks because of the level of damage that

Ukrainians have inflicted on them. And we have, in the meantime, been... And reaching for those tanks demonstrates what to you, sir? It demonstrates that their capability is waning. And we've continued to witness them be challenged with artillery munitions and other things. And they're reaching out to Iran. They're reaching out to North Korea. I think, you know, we'll see an increase in the fighting in the spring as conditions for maneuver improve. Do you believe there's a real chance for significant Ukrainian advancements between now and the beginning of winter? I believe there's a chance and we're doing everything that we can do to ensure that they

have their best opportunity to be successful, Senator. Okay. Obviously not telling the truth. Perjury, probably. Will he be prosecuted? Of course not. You and I both know this. The government doesn't prosecute people that lie to mouth the government's argument. The last person prosecuted for lying to Congress, Roger Clemens, the baseball pitcher for lying about the contents of his urine. You can't make this up. First trial was a hung jury. Second trial was acquitted. Okay. That's not my point. My point is he was saying what he knew was not true. Here's a guy who works for him now.

Four-star, very senior, commander-in-chief of all U.S. forces in Europe, Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, General Christopher Cavoli saying the opposite. I'd like to underline your comment about the specificity of the degradation of the Russian forces. Much of the Russian military has not been affected negatively by this conflict. Much of the Russian military has not been affected negatively by this conflict. One of those forces is their undersea forces. It's hard to talk in public, as you well know, sir, about undersea warfare and our efforts in that regard. But I can say that the Russians are more active than we've seen them in years. And this is, as you pointed out,

despite all of the efforts that they're undertaking inside Ukraine. If I were snarky, I would say I guess he's getting ready to retire because he's certainly not mouthing the government's line. And are you surprised to hear this? No. And in fact, there's more to that clip where, you know, he essentially talks about the strength of the Ukrainian army and its ability to launch this so-called spring offensive. They're waiting for the ground to dry out from the rainy season into the summer here, I guess late spring, so that they can try to launch this offensive they've been talking about. But even before the discord leaks came out, military and White House officials had told the Washington Post that they severely doubt

the Ukrainians' ability to launch a spring, an effective spring offensive at all. And they say, you know, both sides say or feel like they need to launch something to prove that they can or something like that. But, you know, I interviewed Daniel L. Davis, I'm pretty sure you're familiar with him, who writes for 1945 and was in Iraq War I, Iraq War II, and Afghanistan. He was the famous whistleblower from Afghanistan from 2012 and is a great analyst of all this. And he says, win, lose, or draw. If the Ukrainians launch a powerful offensive

and make some major victories somehow, it's still their last stand. And if they lose or just run up against a brick wall, then it's still their last stand too. And then where they go from there, nobody knows. It could be that the reserves that they're building up are so well-armed and so well-trained that we'll all be surprised.

It remains to be seen, but Davis is saying it doesn't matter because even if they succeed in some limited goals, that'll be their real last shot. And then they'll be doomed after that. Our friend Larry Johnson, who was just on right before you, quotes an ex-FBI agent who, though not in the FBI anymore, is anti-war and who monitors this stuff, is saying Ukraine's professional military knows that the offensive would be the so called spring offensive suicidal Ukrainian losses of manpower continue to be extremely heavy Russia claiming that Ukraine lost 15 000 men in April alone losses of equipment are reaching the

catastrophic level does Joe Biden in your know this? Do the neocons in the State Department and the Defense Department know this? Do they care about it? Do they have an off-ramp? I don't know about what Joe Biden knows, what Jake Sullivan is telling him. But yes, clearly, you know, the things that you're talking about, there are reflected in official statements to the major papers, even if it doesn't become the major narrative. And overall, they say everything's fine and everything's going well. You can find plenty of caveats if you read the Wall Street Journal on a regular basis, that kind of a thing that reflect exactly the reality that you're talking about, that they know that. And as again, last November, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said we should quit while we're only so far behind and not worse.

And Sullivan said that they better at least act like they are open to the idea of negotiations for PR's sake then in order to appease anti-war forces in America, because people are already getting really sick and tired. So back to your original question, whether what we think matters or not, it does. It really does. I hate to say what I'm about to say, but it's my truthful view. The American public are not going to wake up to the moral significance of the anti-war movement until American boys start coming home in body bags. And Joe Biden cannot explain or justify legally or politically how the hell they got there. Why they were killed by Russian troops. Yeah, well, we do have special operations forces.

According to the discord leaks, there are 100 allied special operations forces, including I believe it was more than 25 Americans there right now. I mean, if we have real American casualties, that'll be because the worst case scenario broke out and we have a major power conflict between the United States and Russia, which would almost certainly lead not just to body bags, but the annihilation of American cities and deaths by the millions or tens or even hundreds of millions. Gary, can you run the drone videos? We're going to switch topics. You've probably seen these, but if you haven't, you can comment on them afresh.

You'll see the drone. There it is. Exploded right on the other side of that dome building. Now you're going to see it again. This is the Kremlin in the middle of the night. There it is. You can see the Kremlin wall. So this is taken from a Western television outside the Kremlin one more time.

Now this is a Russian television version. It's just the other side. If you look carefully on the left, you'll see the other side of that dome, and then you'll see the explosion. You'll see a close-up of the fire on the roof of the dome. There's the fire

burning on the roof of the dome. There's the close-up. Larry Johnson thinks the fire is either debris or fuel from the drone. My question to you is, are the Ukrainians crazy enough to do this and try and provoke Putin? He has a home. I understand he doesn't regularly live there, but he has a home, a glorious apartment in the Kremlin. Would they be crazy enough to do this and suppose it turns

out that this drone was made in iowa well um yeah you never know um it's a it's a wild wild arms trade out there judge but uh i'll tell you um i think that uh yes the ukrainians would do this and they've run sabotage campaigns and assassinations and all kinds of things beyond Russian lines. They've blown up two trains in two days. I think it was yesterday and the day before that. They derailed two trains with explosives inside Russia. And I think, you know, it's funny, I saw the reaction from the, you know, liberal group think Twitter swarm today was that this was a false flag that was even trending. This is a false flag. It must

have been the Russians attack themselves in this way, just as an excuse somehow to escalate the war when of course, Putin can escalate it, you know, if he wants to anyway. But they were kind of basing it on what an ineffectual attack it was, which I think is fair to say. Look, to me, although I don't know why that means it's a false flag, it just seems to me more like it was. It was. It was ineffectual, which has caused some of our sources to say it's to send a message. We can get this close. Larry Johnson says the last time there was an explosion over the Kremlin in Moscow was 1941, and it was the Nazis, and we know how they fared in that. This will, if anything, galvanize, I'm using Larry's word, the Russian people behind President Putin even more than they are now. I think, you know, that's probably true. It could be true that they would

do it for that reason, but I don't think that that's probably necessary from, you know, not knowing that much about Russian politics, but I know Putin is still relatively popular and there's not, you know, widespread dissent against the war in the country right now. So, but it also makes sense from a Ukrainian point of view that they would do that as a morale boost that, look, we can reach out and touch the Kremlin, even if, obviously, they set the roof on fire. And, you know, for anyone to say it was a true assassination attempt against Putin, I think, is kind of deliberately missing the point. While all this is going on, the Secretary of State was at a conference today celebrating the freedom of speech.

So this is Tony Blinken. I don't know who he was speaking with, but watch what happened. We've been able to talk. Excuse us. We can't use this day without calling for the freedom of Julian Assange. The Biden administration must Stop the extradition request. Two hours and not one more. Stop the extradition request. Two hours and not one word. Take it easy. Take it easy. Take it easy, guys.

Not one word about journalist Shireen Al-Khawassi, who was murdered by the Australian occupation forces in Palestine. We're here to celebrate freedom of expression, and we just experienced it. Let me continue, Mr. Secretary, to ask you about Evan Grishkovich and your efforts to get him free. I want to talk about Julian Assange, because what he revealed, the truths that he revealed, embarrassed and humiliated their predecessors. But they do want to talk about Evan Gershkovich, who knows what he was doing when he got caught. Your thoughts. We'll end our happy 20 minutes together. It's always happy no matter what we talk about because you're such a great guy and you're always smiling.

We'll end our comments today on this. What do you think? Okay. It's hard for me to not just go off on a tangent about how much I despise Anthony Blinken. To imagine this guy sitting in Thomas Jefferson's chair just kills me all day. It's the Condoleezza Rice of the Biden administration. But look, first of all, he's talking with David Ignatius, who's a former CIA agent and obviously still a CIA agent and regular writer for The Washington Post. He's widely known as the man closest to the agency at The Post, is who he was talking to there. And then that's the heroic Medea Benjamin from Code Pink.

People say that Code Pink got silent when Obama got elected. That is not true. That lady and her friends had been really kicking behind this entire time, doing things like that and showing up at protests and rallies and all those things this whole time. And what she's saying there is absolutely right. Imagine the hypocrisy of these people pretending to stick up for free speech, which, I'm sorry, that guy, Ivan, I think you're talking about there. That's the wall street journal reporter. He should be let go, but for them to sit there and posture about that while Julian Assange is locked up. And then I'm not sure who the guy that,

that Medea was with there, but he also joined in that. Yeah. what about America standing up for Shireen Abu-Akhled, who was the American Palestinian journalist murdered by the IDF last year on the West Bank, shot, you know, three times in the face with a giant press badge on the front of her jacket. And the FBI claimed that they were investigating and then apparently dropped it. And so here's, you know, our closest ally regularly kills American civilians. I'd say closest ally in, you know, ironic quotes, regularly kills American civilians.

And here, including an American journalist, and America basically says absolutely nothing about it. And so both of those are just absolute atrocities against journalism and, you know, against the kind of principles that this country was found on, that we all learned. That's what makes America great in the first place is freedom, such as the freedom of the press. Scott, I am a fierce defender of the First Amendment and I could not have said it better than you just did. Thank you very much for joining us on all this stuff. Come back again next week, please. Absolutely happy to. Thank you, Judge.

Okay. More as we get it. More as we get it on the drones over the Kremlin. More as we get it on the so-called spring offensive and maybe a surprise coming later this week. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.