Judging
Freedom, 11 July 2024: “Putin’s Next
Moves”
In today’s edition of Judging Freedom with Judge Andrew Napolitano, we had a far-reaching discussion of the contradictory signals in and around the ongoing NATO summit in Washington.
On the one hand, a couple of days ago the alternative media were reporting President Zelensky’s latest statements suggesting that the end of the war is nigh based on a negotiated settlement in line with Russian demands. He was said to be ready to invite Russia to the next Peace Conference he is promoting. He was said to accept the need to recognize Russian rule over the territories they captured in the war.
On the other hand, in the proceedings in Washington Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Tony Blinken have spoken publicly in the most belligerent manner about delivery of F16s and of a variety of air defense systems for the sake of Ukraine’s continuing the fight and preventing Putin’s march on Europe which, they say, would follow should Ukraine lose the war.
Meanwhile, there is confusion over the intention of the United States to send ground-to-ground versions of the nuclear capable medium range (1800 km) Tomahawk missiles to Europe. Is the timetable for such deliveries 2026 or is it in the immediate weeks ahead? Are they to be shipped only to Germany or are they going to Ukraine, as Russian talk shows last night discussed? If the latter is the case, then they could reach to Moscow and well beyond, posing the kind of threat that Mr. Putin has said would prompt a preemptive nuclear attack from Russia.
Finally, we discussed the latest news posted on the Zero Hedge portal a day ago that China’s People’s Liberation Army is presently conducting 11 days of military exercises near Brest in Belarus, close to both the Ukrainian and the Polish borders. If true, this would be a very quick implementation of the mutual security provisions of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization which Belarus formally joined at the SCO Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan two weeks ago. It would also give Poland, in particular, and NATO more generally good reason to reflect on the wisdom of NATO’s becoming a global alliance by building a presence in East Asia, which is the subject of today’s deliberations of the Alliance members in Washington, D.C.
See Dr. Gilbert Doctorow : Putin’s Next Moves