[Music] heat heat [Music] hi everyone Judge Andrew Npalitano here for Judging Freedom today is Wednesday March 19th 2025 colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now colonel and those of you uh listening excuse my froggy voice these things happen uh from time to time thank you for your time Colonel colonel what um military advantage was there or is there to bombing the Houthis over the weekend you know it's difficult to calculate that uh this has been a pretty unrewarding activity and you would think after all the years of having bombed these people in Yemen someone would have concluded that unless you go in on the ground you're probably not going to disrupt them and what we've seen is after every series of strikes over many many years you recall we were also bombing them on behalf of Saudi Arabia at one point after the strikes are over they resurface and launch missiles and their their entire focus is of course to punish US and Israeli shipping that has connection to the war in the Middle East it's very straightforward they've said uh until you stop killing Palestinians we're we're going to continue to shoot at you are they actually interfering with American ships not naval ships but commercial uh transportation well if they can identify the ship as SL flagged American yes they they've taken shots at it i think the most important thing to realize that if you're Lloyds of London and you're in the business of ensuring ships you don't want people moving through the Red Sea or the Suez Canal at this point I saw a u a threear I'm not even sure which branch uh speaking alongside the uh new spokesperson Sean Parnell for the U Pentagon saying the hoodies fired back they missed us by a 100 miles was that uh hyperbolic or could they have been that far off uh I have no idea and I wouldn't wait for an accurate statement to come out of the Pentagon the Pentagon is certainly not going to announce uh accuracy and precision or effectiveness for the Hoodi operation or for the people in Yemen i I wouldn't worry about it at this point i know that they came within very close range of destroying some Israeli airfield the Israelis managed to down the missile so that gives you an impression of the kind of accuracy that they're capable of achieving so they're they're a long way from Israel down in the south of Saudi Arabia is this the beginning uh of a conflration between either the United States and Iran or Israel wouldn't be the beginning but the continuation of a confilgration between Israel and Iran a military confilgration well you know judge I've said for a long time that we're going to end up at war with Iran and I still think we're on that path unfortunately I don't think it's a path that President Trump necessarily wants in fact I think most of his belliso bellico's statements directed at Iran are designed to uh sort of bluff Iran into a position of paralysis to convince Iran that it's in their best interest to essentially surrender to uh to us and to Israel their national sovereignty for all intents and purposes that's not going to happen so I think what you're seeing now is the continued pressure being exerted on Iran by us and the Israelis until finally it blows up and we get the the full regional war so yeah I think we're on that route i don't think we're going to get off of it frankly why do you uh think Colonel uh President Trump uh unleashed Prime Minister Netanyahu Netanyahu to resume genocide in Gaza which unfortunately resulted I say unfortunately it was intentional the killing of 400 civilians uh in the past two days i don't think he has any choice i think when he ran for office he made certain agreements with major donors uh these donors are move far beyond just Miriam add these donors oblige him to effectively underwrite whatever Mr netanyahu wants to do i thought it I thought it was interesting that a recent meeting was set up for the United States with uh Azerban to talk about cooperation with Israel but it was is set up by Mr netanyahu he called and made the arrangements with Mr ali who's the president of Azerban the State Department did not do it i think we're very much in the uh in the grip of the Israel lobby and I think President Trump is obliged to go along and I don't see any evidence that he's going to diverge from that path does he have no choice uh but to back up Israel militarily when it attacks Iran uh I think so and keep in mind you always have the possibility that a war is precipitated somehow by Israel somewhere in the region with Iran the Iranians respond and the expectation is with the buildup of force in the region you know we're sending additional carrier battle groups over there right now the the expectation is that we will reinforce whatever the Israelis want to do we've already done all of the uh planning for joint strikes and joint strike packages uh we're sharing all of the intelligence with our vast satellite arrays with theirs so I I think it's a foregone conclusion i can't predict when or how but I think it's going to happen can you get your hands around the thinking of a human being who wants to do all he can to end the war in Ukraine and big bring about a grand reset between the United States China Russia Brazil and India but is still stuck on giving Netanyahu all he wants to slaughter innocents in Gaza yeah I'm afraid I can i I think he tends to compartmentalize whereas if you're sitting in Moscow or any of the other capitals that you mentioned they are they see no such uh compartmentalization they see what's happening in the Middle East as part and parcel of what's been going on in Ukraine an effort by us and our proxies to undermine them whether it happens to be Iran or Russia or any of the others that you mentioned let's talk about the um so-called agreement that emanated from the two and a half two and a half hour conversation uh yesterday between President Trump and President Putin do you agree that it's unlikely that they spent two and a half hours talking about bombing Ukrainian infrastructure and that they probably spoke about many other things as well number one and number two is this much of a concession by President Putin oh of course not it isn't and we're not going to get any concessions from President Putin on this matter i I think President Trump made the phone call with the hope that he could persuade uh President Putin to respond positively in some way to the offer of a ceasefire that we had extracted from Zilinski and I think he got something like that when there was an agreement to not destroy or attack any more energy infrastructure in Ukraine but keep in mind that just 6 hours later Ukrainians struck energy infrastructure in Russia so under the circumstances uh was that meaningful at all and I think the answer is probably no we need to understand something there there's one important point on which President Putin and President Trump agree and that is that neither of them under any circumstances want a war to break out between us in other words both men will do whatever they can to avoid a direct confrontation with each other that is good news and we should all be grateful that President Trump is in the White House at the moment and not President Biden because there was no evidence that President Biden and his administration were really interested in avoiding that kind of conflict the problem is how far can we go uh in terms of uh admitting that the war is lost that Putin has won not Putin but Russia that the Russian armed forces are in a position that cannot be effectively attacked by the West that the Russians can continue to move west if they want to that's difficult for President Trump to state categorically and again it came up that if if you really want this to end President Trump you've got to stop this flow of military aid and assistance to Ukraine not only do you need to stop that you need to prevail upon your allies to stop it and thus far we're seeing a lot of evidence that we have very little influence over our allies in fact our so-called allies seem to be determined to chart a separate and distinct path of confrontation with Russia so this is a very difficult situation i don't think President Trump alone can solve all of it at this point i I know it's uh difficult to try and figure him out because he's often all over the place in what he says and what he does that maybe the question uh is unfair but how can he be asking Vladimir Putin for peace when we are funding a war against him continuing to fund it not with cash but with the same military levels as Joe Biden was judge you're uh you're preaching to the choir on this one how many times have I been on your show over the last months probably the last year and said repeatedly the the most important thing for us to do to signal our seriousness about this is to end aiding Ukrainians period and to get all Americans in and out of uniform intelligence civilian whatever out of Ukraine that's still what we need to do if we do that then I think we can look forward to a useful discussion with the Russians in terms of what we want to do in Ukraine and ultimately across Europe but until we reach that point we understand we've got to do it nothing fundamentally is going to change and that's the point of the discussion over the last 24 hours the only thing we achieved was to agree to a hockey game uh that's I guess a morale builder but that fundamentally changed the facts i think in the parliament of the neighborhood I grew up in North Philadelphia uh I think Mr putin threw Mr trump a bone when he said we'll we'll stop destroying energy infrastructure why do you think President Putin dawned military fatigues traveled to Korsk and publicly ordered his generals to get this over with and then they did uh two things first of all in most of the world not in the United States not in the United Kingdom uh not in much of Western Europe but in most countries I think the ministers of defense usually wear a military uniform you know even though they haven't previously been long service soldiers then the heads of state in virtually all almost all countries uh usually wear some sort of uniform that is military and associated with the armed forces now I don't think I should say all but certainly the the majority for him as the head of state and the commander-in-chief to wear wear a uniform is widely expected in Russia that's normal it would be abnormal if he showed up otherwise and that was to signal the absolute deadly seriousness of of the matter in fact in 1914 you had uh Field Marshall Kitner uh who was the Minister of Defense we would say Minister of War in Great Britain or First Secretary of War who went to France to speak to General French who was commanding the British Expeditionary Force to tell him "You're not leaving you're staying you're going to fight to the bitter end with the French." And uncharacteristically for a first secretary of state for war he put on his uniform as a field marshal went over there and made it clear so I think I think this sort of thing signals exactly what you suggested the absolute seriousness of Putin's determination to put an end to this so the Russians agree not to uh attack Ukrainian energy infrastructure i guess that means uh plants that produce energy hydroelectric plants nuclear uh plants old-fashioned oil fired plants um but the Ukrainians weren't participating haven't agreed and have behaved in the opposite way is does the US as far as you know uh intend to speak to Zalinski and tell him what to do i think Zalinski has demonstrated that he is not really responsive to what the president of the United States says and I think that's evident also within the broader NATO framework you now have Great Britain and France who for all intents and purposes are telling us that they're going to press ahead on a separate avenue of approach into Ukraine we are not in control the president of the United States who's commander-in-chief of the US armed forces is not in control of all European forces nato itself is broken down it is not this uh alliance that is committed to unity of effort and unity of command anymore so I think the Russians know that they're not surprised unfortunately the Europeans and Zalinski have made President Trump look silly to be blunt how have they made him look silly i mean a lot of your colleagues on this show think he has made them uh look silly he's excluded them from uh negotiations they're boasting about what aid they can provide Zinsky which they they don't even have and if they send what they have the the Russians will demolish it well he's the he's not just the commander-in-chief of the US armed forces he's effectively the leader of the alliance and if your alliance is no longer in step with you and you tell them what you will or will not do and you tell them not to do something and I'm sure President Trump has made it very clear we are not interested in a confrontation with Russia you are pressing ahead with the goal of confronting Russia that is what the British and the French want to do however ridiculous it may appear to us they seem to be quite serious about it now can it be done uh I don't know they they have to go through Germany and Poland in order to reach Western Ukraine but they seem to be intent on doing that so that means that the alliance is no longer responsive to President Trump so if you're a Russian you're looking at this and say "Well it's all fine well and good whatever President Trump says but he doesn't control the NATO alliance anymore so we can't expect him to speak for the alliance in terms of what they will or will not do." Colonel what is NATO without the United States well that's that's the the $60,000 question i don't think it amounts to much i haven't for a long time and you know you've been to Europe many times we all have europe is hardly a uniform construct europeans in different parts of Europe see the world very differently if you're in Rome and you look at the world from the perspective of Italy uh is Italy remotely interested in a war in Russia of course not uh the same is true for Spain and I would argue the same is true for Paris and President Mcronone is making a serious mistake by seeing it otherwise he's he's out of touch with reality and out of touch with his own population and of course I think the British are viewing all of this in the way that perhaps we are what are we doing on the ground in Ukraine uh that doesn't make any sense now the British historically have relied on their naval power but they're a much diminished naval power they can't blockade uh the Russians they can't control what goes in and out of Russian ports anymore so the bottom line is NATO doesn't amount to very much without us now that doesn't have to be a permanent condition and I I'm beginning to hear indications from the president and his administration that we're quite prepared to live with a new four-star supreme commander of NATO and Mons who is not an American which I applaud because at some point the Europeans have to take responsibility for themselves they're talking the talk but they're not walking the walk so I think ultimately they'll end up looking ridiculous but in the meantime they're embarrassing us because they are theoretically uh led by us within the NATO framework and that's not the way people are behaving colonel do you see any connection whether um political or emotional between uh the two decisions within two days one to un by Donald Trump one to unleash Netanyahu uh and the other to talk peace with Putin there there is a difference and we need to understand this the people who are arguing to back the Greater Israel project even if it involves war with the United States between Iran and the United States Egypt and the United States who whoever in the region doesn't support the Greater Israel project is the following there are some key assumptions that both Washington and the government in Jerusalem have agreed to and or essentially sign up for number one assumption is that the Arabs Turks Persians all the Muslims in the region in the final analysis are cowed by us they're afraid of us we can bully them we can bribe them we can drive them in whatever direction we want them to go number one they will not fight back number two that as long as the United States armed forces are in the area and back Israel that the United States armed forces together with Israel are invincible and invulnerable in the Middle East and I think the third is that ultimately the rest of the world will indulge us that everyone else will go along with it because they have no choice those three assumptions have not been invalidated thus far if you stand back for the region and you look at it from Mr netanyahu's standpoint and I think uh Mr trump shares this view the people in the region have not fought back they have not directly challenged the destruction the mass murder and expulsion of people in Gaza or presumably in the West Bank in southern Lebanon or anywhere else it simply hasn't happened and so they're right they think they can get away with this and bully anybody when you move to Eastern Europe that's a different environment completely we are not in a position to challenge the Russians militarily in Ukraine and I think there's an awareness behind the scenes that if we try to do that we will lose that confrontation and so there's a there's a willingness to do business in Ukraine that's different from doing business in the Middle East where we think we reign supreme wait a superb analysis Colonel going back to the Middle East doesn't uh Netanyahu risk the existence of his country if he attacks Iran even with the assistance of the United States i certainly think so uh and I I'm not the lone ranger obviously i think it's worse than that i think he the the existence of Israel within the region is very much uh up up for grabs at this point you cannot tell all of your neighbors and everyone that you live with that they are subhuman animals and then expect to flip the switch on and have everyone marched your tune whatever you're playing so I I think it's very dangerous right now for Israel i don't think Israel's existence should be put at risk in this fashion but I hold the minority opinion the people in Israel that are backing Mr netanyahu feel very differently they think this is their moment in the sun that they can uh conquer the region if you will either militarily or psychologically that everyone can be compelled to bend to them because of us and we are now unconditionally signed up for that war if it has to be fought and the assumption is we can win it again we forget and we've talked about this before the Middle East is 6,000 miles from us a long way the logistics of the fight are very very critical right you cannot sustain yourself indefinitely if you get into a brawl with a large continental power like Iran but instead of looking at the the capabilities of Iran and for that matter the potential for the entire region to line up against you those are things that no one will touch because they just don't believe it's possible so Colonel um just as an example of the Zionists uh with whom the president has surrounded himself the last time I checked the FBI was a domestic law enforcement uh agency charged with enforcing federal criminal laws in the United States you might not know that uh if you heard uh director Patel um say the following chris cut number 13 you will see what we did with Israel and the prime minister and our special forces and their intel operation we will be standing side by side with them we will shut off the machinery that feeds money into Iran we need America to wake up and prioritize Israel we need to bring home Americans and end this war bring home Israelis and make sure we stand by our number one ally in Israel and people need to wake up is that the job of the FBI no but it's it's a fair uh articulation of the attitude inside the administration this is very much an Israel first administration and whether or not you agree with it it doesn't matter their view is that our interests and Israel's interests are identical now I don't think they are i don't think they ever were our interests aren't really identical with very many nations around the world at all uh but this is the this is the low what what would you call it the touchstone of membership and allegiance inside the Trump administration so I think cash is telling you exactly what President Trump has told him and that is the policy of the United States that's where we're headed that's why we're going to have a war with Iran do you share the view of Alistister Crook that the divisions in Israeli society are broad and deep and exacerbated by Netanyahu and this firing of Cash Patel's opposite number ahead of Shinbet will only make things worse well Alistister Crook knows a great deal more about the internal workings of Israel and for that matter Israel's neighbors than I do uh I think there are divisions in Israel of that there is no question however they have had these divisions in the past and when necessary uh this was true in 48 it was true in in 56 there's some evidence for it in ' 67 whenever they've had these divisions they have been able to impose government's authority on everyone in Israel to ensure everyone marches in the same direction so I think right now while that may be true to some extent it's not critical to the outcome mr netanyahu is firmly in charge let there be no doubt about that whatsoever and he is on this path and he will not be diverted from it colonel McGregor thank you very much my dear friend thank you for your time thank you for letting me take the conversation across the board so to speak from Washington to Palestine to Tel Aviv to you to Kev to Moscow i wish I wish we could take our cold and leave it somewhere else at this point since both you and I seem to have the same right and and I agree with you that the single mold scotch is more effective than the Irish whiskey always always i don't know i I don't know what the problem is in Ireland they just can't seem to brew really good whiskey now I'm sure I'll get 5,000 emails how could you possibly say this oh god there's a pub in my neighborhood called Jameson's i don't know if it's an outlet of the of the uh brewer or of the distillery or what but they I don't think you'd be welcome there i I think if somebody wanted to be shot through the face when I was growing up all they had to do was walk into my grandfather's house and hand him a bottle of whiskey that was blended wow you were dead on the spot if it wasn't single malt they wouldn't touch it so thanks a lot thank you Colonel all the best feel better sir thank you sure and coming up later today my froggy voice holding out at 1:00 Pepeco Bar earlier I said he's in Moscow i don't know where he is but we'll find out when he's here uh and at 3:00 Phil Geraldi Justin Paulo for Judging Freedom [Music] [Music]