Judging Freedom - Wrongheaded U.S. Leadership in Ukraine - Intel Roundtable Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

Wrongheaded U.S. Leadership in Ukraine - Intel Roundtable Larry Johnson, Ray McGovernSee 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. Today is Friday, September 8th, 2023. It's time for our Intelligence Roundtable with our dear friends and colleagues, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Larry, let me start with you. You have an interesting piece out. I got it in the middle of the night. I guess you wrote it yesterday about how the senior level members of the intelligence community continue to delude their colleagues, the press, the public, and themselves. I want to talk a little bit about that. I mean, is this anything new, or is this what we've been going through since the war started?

Unfortunately, you keep expecting these guys to wake up like an alcoholic or a drug addict that's hit rock bottom and finally say, hey, if I don't change, I'm going to die. I need to wake up to reality. This individual, last name Maul, M-A-U-L, is the head. He's the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency's analytical section. He did a stint in the Navy but uh he was an

intelligence officer in the Navy which meant he had let me just stop you so everybody knows where we are the defense intelligence agency is one of the federal government's publicly acknowledged 17 unique discreet uh intelligence communities this one fully in the military right well right and and the 17 numbers misleading because not also DIA is one of the three major collectors you got NSA DIA and then CIA they are the major collectors this is the one that General Mike Flynn once headed yeah yeah and Flynn did a great job when he was there but so so this guy comes out and and so he's the kind of person one he doesn't have any background doing soviet analysis no background doing combat ground combat analysis and yet he's out doing this you know

talking to this reporter well the way this works and you know ray and i used to do this when we were new analysts you would you're the substance, you would write out talking points, and then those would be reviewed by your branch chief, and then they'd be reviewed by your division chief, and then be given to the person at top who is supposed to go out and talk like they know what they're talking about. But they're basically going off the talking points that, you somebody farther down the food chain road so the analyst who wrote the talking points for this guy he i think he put his own spin on it because he says oh he thinks there's a realistic possibility that ukraine's going to break through and go all the way to the sea of azov and yet what he presents in the talking points is okay yeah they've got a shortage of ammunition and yeah weather's going to turn against them and they're going to be stuck in the mud and yeah they have a shortage of manpower they're having trouble recruiting people and so you're looking at that going so explain to me how

that becomes a realistic possibility so it's this again this is this again reinforces what you and Ray and McGovern and Ritter have been to the people in the White House, it's an entirely different story. Ray. Well, Judge, what we have here is somebody who's going to be promoted to be the head of DIA. You see, this is the way it works. You have, as Larry said, CIA, DIA, and NSA. Those are the main players here. And who's in charge of all these people? Well, there's a woman named Avril Haines who's supposed to be in charge, but she's not in charge.

It's probably just as well. Who's in charge? And Jacob Sullivan is in charge. It's probably just as well. Who's in charge? And Jacob Sullivan is in charge. These people. That's the president's national security advisor known as Jake, who was also the national security advisor for Mrs. Clinton when she was secretary of state. Same person? Actually, he was National Security Advisor for Joe Biden when Joe Biden was Vice President.

So he was involved in this whole Ukraine thing from the beginning. We know from Victoria Nuland's intercepted conversation two and a half weeks before the coup played on YouTube, no less, that he promised that his boss, Vice President Joe Biden, would come in and give a veneer of legitimacy to this high-powered, well-respected people to the coup that was coming in Kiev, which, as I said, came two and a half weeks later. So Andrew Sullivan, I mean, Jacob Sullivan is the one that's running all this stuff. So he can pick between what this genius from DIA says

and what other geniuses who might be more honest say, and he can give what this what this clown says to the president say see DIA agrees there's a great possibility that we could that the way the Ukrainians could break through it's rubbish but how does the president know that it's rubbish he doesn't Jake Sullivan there's a terrific article by Martin Zief out about Jake Sullivan. Long story short, he says, you remember the best and the brightest that brought us Vietnam? Remember? That's David Halberstam. Yeah, right. Okay. Well, these guys, Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken. These guys are the worst and the dimmest, not the brightest, the dimmest. They have an incredible pedigree. Larry, to raise a somewhat whimsical comment,

is this how you get ahead in the intelligence community? Not by analyzing the truth, but by telling the public if that's your assignment, your superiors if that's your job, people in the West Wing if that's your gig, what management wants them to hear. Disconnected from the truth if necessary. Sycophancy has always been a great career enhancer if you go back to look at the when Mike Flynn was there so I was I was down working at the JSOC compound at Fort Bragg and this was during the war in Syria so if you're watching the media and watching what some of them was being said publicly boy the Syrian government's on the ropes. Bashar Assad's only got a day or two left.

The rebels are surging. And yet what was being put out by DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency back then, was the exact opposite. It was reporting that, in fact, the Syrian government was doing well, that the Russians were helping, that the rebels were not prevailing. It was a very honest, hard-hitting assessment, completely at odds with the public spend that was coming out of the White House, the Obama White House at the time. Well, Mike Flynn paid the price for that. He got fired.

They dumped him. And then they decided to attack him because he dared to tell the truth that they didn't want to hear now we're the complete opposite end of the spectrum these guys are sucking up so fast you don't want to be near them they're like a vacuum cleaner you get sucked in all right speaking of these guys here's i don't know if tony blinken is jake sullivan's boss or not but here's uh the secretary of state just two days ago making one of his more absurd comments. I'll let you guys comment on it. But the essence of it is the Ukrainian military has made you ready for this.

Ray and Larry, real progress in the years since I was last year Ukraine has taken back more than 50% of the territory that Russia has seized from it since February of 2022 in the current counter-offensive we are seeing real progress over the last few weeks as it happens president Zelensky just returned from the front line so I was able to hear directly from him his assessment of the counter offensive and I think it very much matches our own which is as I said real progress in lines. So I was able to hear directly from him, his assessment of the counteroffensive. And I think it very much matches our own, which is, as I said, real progress in recent weeks. This is a scoundrel, Larry. 50% of the territory taken back, real progress. And his source is

Zelensky, who was at the front lines. I can't imagine he exposed himself to danger at the front lines. I'll let you take it. Yeah, no, I mean, it's like that line from the movie The Princess Bride. William Shawn, the actor, kept using the word inconceivable. And finally, Domingo Montez says, I don't think that word means what you think it means. And that's the same with Blinken. You know, real progress? Tony, look at a map and just look

at the progress that has not been made by Ukraine and the fact that Russia has been steadily pushing to the east. The Battle of Bakhmut was the last big conflict, but they don't understand Russian defensive tactics. Will the intelligence community at some point rebel, Ray, against their bosses for telling outright lies and making it look like the guys and girls who risk their lives to gather this raw data who are actually on the ground or dealing with double agents and all their other sources are gathering information that is untrue. It makes them look like jerks. Judge, we can pray, but we shouldn't pray for impossible things. There will be no rebellion, no revolt because of the malleable managers that have been put in place three

decades ago. What we can pray for is for a whistleblower. And we've had a couple. For a whistleblower that gets the kind of attention that says, look, Americans, you've been had, okay? Money that should have gone to your schools, to your teachers, to your health benefits has gone. $100 billion to Ukraine, a lot of it siphoned off. And not only that, it was a hopeless cause. You're not winning, you're losing. Now, Stoltenberg, who's the head of NATO, made the mistake of getting up before the EU assembly. All the parliamentarians there yesterday in Brussels. And what did he say?

Well, he said, we are making great progress. We are actually enhancing our military budget, 8% next year. We need to do that because then we're increasing our production of the shells we need to prevail in Ukraine. And, you know, we're going to continue being following this rules-based international order. Now, he didn't count on the fact that there were two delegates there that speak the truth, both from Ireland, I'm proud to say. Claire Daly said- Here we go, Larry. Go ahead, Ray.

I watched her. She's great. Go ahead, Ray. Claire Daly says this is crazy, as Larry just said, about acquiring more territory. But then her partner, a fellow named Mick Wallace, he got up and he said, it's precious. It's three sentences. I want to read it. I took notes here. Go ahead. Vilnius Summit, he says, Mr. Stoltenberg. The declaration states that the Chinese are trying to subvert the rules-based international order and criticizes China for being opaque,

opaque, mind you, about its strategy and intentions. My first question, he says, is how is it possible to subvert an order that has no constitution and no basis whatsoever in international law? How can you subvert that kind of order? Now, Zelensky's response is, but, you know, he's been held to account in front of all the parliamentarians. All the others are as doltish as Daltonburg, I'm sorry to say. So it takes whistleblowers to do this. I'm praying that some whistleblower from the Pentagon or from the bowels of the CIA who has an honest conscience blow the whistle on all this craziness. Larry, you sent me a piece by Seymour Hersh on Progogion.

And he makes the argument. Chris is all over the place, calm down, he makes the argument that Ritter and McGovern and you both have been making that Putin is actually stronger after the Progozhin so-called fake mutiny than before it. This was written before Prigozhin's death, so there's no opining in there about Prigozhin's death. But nobody talks about this anymore. It's almost as if the Prigozhin incident didn't exist, and the State Department wants us to believe that Putin is weaker rather than stronger. Add to this that wonderful statement that Viktor Orban made to Tucker Carlson, that you must look at Russia the way the Russians do.

The essence of their society is not freedom. It's cohesion. It's physical, geographical integrity, because the West has been pursuing them for 300 years. Now, there's no other country in the world that has been invaded as much and has had as much success in beating off, defeating the invaders time after time, even when it seemed that the odds against them were impossible. It is fascinating the complete disconnect with the reality on the ground in Russia.

It's like nobody that I'm seeing that's, you know, one of the recognized experts, and I'll put that in quotations to talk about Russia, actually seems to have any understanding or grasp of what it is. recognized experts, and I'll put that in quotations to talk about Russia, actually seems to have any understanding or grasp of what the country is. It's almost like describing the old Soviet Union. And, you know, the Soviet Union that was led by a bunch of crotchety old men and women. And then now you've got it in the United States. Between, you know, Mitch, I'm going to stare you down, McConnell, and Joe Dementia Biden, and then Nancy Pelosi, where's my teeth?

You know, it's just, we've become what the got rid of Putin, that would fix everything. And nobody asked the follow-up question, what comes next? Are they suggesting that you're going to get somebody who's, quote, more moderate than Putin, whatever that is? Or is it possible that you get someone who's more of a nationalist bent like Medvedev? Yeah, it's just foolishness. Here's Tony Blinken in that same press conference. By the way, he's standing next to the, you probably recognize him,

the Ukrainian foreign minister. Yeah, Kuleba. Right, in which he's basically saying NATO is helping Ukraine build for the future and it's getting stronger and stronger. Listen to this. It's critically important that we and many other countries that have agreed to do the same help Ukraine build a force for the future, a military force for the future that is capable of deterring future aggression and, if necessary, defending and defeating it. We now have 29 countries that have signed on to a declaration issued by the G7 at the end of the NATO summit that is focused on doing just that, helping Ukraine build this

force future. And we need President Putin to understand that he cannot outlast Ukraine. He cannot outlast Ukraine's supporters. That Ukraine is actually going to grow stronger and even more effective with a military force that is world class, but also a strong and vibrant economy and a strong and vibrant democracy. Sounds, Ray, to me like he's trying to sound more Victoria Nuland than Victoria Nuland is. He's virtually admitting what we've accused him of, which is the use of Ukraine as a battering ram to drive Vladimir Putin from office, Ray.

Several congressmen have made that point very proudly. Blumenthal from Connecticut. Look at how lucky we are. We haven't sacrificed one soldier. The Koreans are doing all the fighting and all the dying. Hello? You know, the irony of all this is that you have people like Blinken who comes out of the same mold as Sullivan, highly educated. One of my friends talked about them being born with a silver spoon in their mouth or with a golden tureen in a dark place on the other side of their body. I mean, they were born, they're born to rule, right? They don't know diddly about the Soviet Union and Russia as it exists today. And the supreme irony is that they don't probably even remember

that during World War II, we were allies. That as John Kennedy said, we never fought a war against each other. That's remarkable, okay? Right, right. And what, you know, what I've done now, Kennedy said, we never fought a war against each other. That's remarkable, okay? Right, right. And what, you know, what I've experienced now is Soviet generals coming up to me six, seven years ago, looking me in the eye and saying, Studebaker, Studebaker, Studebaker, and then giving me a great big embrace.

Why? This 92-year-old general was on the front in Europe, okay? And it was 200,000 two and a half ton trucks that the U.S. produced and gave to him and his other army buddies that repelled the Germans. There was an alliance. They couldn't have done it without us, most people think. And so, you know, why don't we get back to that? Because our objectives, our real national objectives, dispensing with the new rules-based international order, whatever that is, should be congruent, not opposite where we risk nuclear war. Ray? Hey, Judge, let me jump in real quick. I just noticed something that blinked. So in there, he says, we got 29 countries. Okay, I can show you a headline from a year ago. Were they able

to give aid to Ukraine? The number of countries was 40. What happened to the other 11? Where are they? Wow. Last topic, Larry, to you first. Do we know how much money Joe Biden has spent? Cy Hersh says it's $150 billion. Cy says he is actually, the president has spent more than Congress authorized using accounting gimmicks. Do we have any way of knowing what's been spent so far? American dollars, cash, ammunition,

and hardware in Ukraine? No, because part of the problem is, even though the money is identified as going to Ukraine, it's actually going to Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, part of the military industrial corporation. So it's making its way back into the pockets of U.S. corporations that are profiting from the war. Wow. Last word, McGovern. Well, also, there's no way to distinguish between the money going to buy arms for the Ukrainians and the money paying off Ukrainian politicians for keeping silent on Hunter and his daddy. Got it. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Great,

great segment. Very popular every Friday afternoon. I know you put in a lot of time with us. We deeply appreciate it. Enjoy the weekend. All the best. Thanks so much. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you. If you like what you saw, help us to spread the word. Like, subscribe, tell a friend, tell a colleague.

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