February 2024
Rather than report, corporate and state media act as liberal advocates for every damaging beat up and deadly cause. Covid jabs, climate 'crises', illegal migration invasions, homosexuality, abortion... you name it, the presstitutes will sell their souls to peddle it.
Typically, reportage of the Ukraine war has been a tidal wave of advocacy-journalism from the outset; agenda-driven presstitution selling bald lies and half-truths. Consider the refreshing difference between the official narrative and these extracts from a lengthy interview with a military expert conducted last August by Tucker Carlson. A former mainstream superstar, Carlson's refusal to sell his journalistic soul led to last year's providential sacking by Fox News and his consequent move to cyberspace; where his independent platform now provides a massive audience for disinterested truth-tellers shunned by the mainstream. Our transcription and title.
A Reckoning Draws Nigh
TUCKER CARLSON: "Pretty much everything that NBC News and the New York Times have told you about the war in Ukraine is a lie.
'The Russian army is incompetent,' they claim.
'Ukraine is a democracy.'
'Vladimir Putin is Hitler and he's trying to take over the world.'
'The Ukrainians are winning.'
None of that is true. Every claim is false. The last one especially.
The Ukrainian army is not winning. In fact, it's losing badly. Ukraine is being destroyed. It's population is being slaughtered, in lopsided battles with a technologically superior enemy. Or scattered by the millions to the rest of the globe as refugees.
Ukraine is running out of soldiers. As that happens, the question will inevitably be arise: If the Ukrainians can't beat Putin, who will? The answer of course will be us. American troops will fight the Russian army in Eastern Europe. That's most likely. And the asssumption is: we'll win. But will we win.
Probably not, says former army Colonel Douglas McGregor, a decorated combat veteran who advised the Secretary of Defence in the last administration. The U.S. army, says McGregor, is on the brink of a catastrophic war that could very easily destroy us. Few Americans seem to understand that. But they should.
TC: Doug McGregor, thanks for joining us. How would you assess and describe the state of the war in Ukraine right now?
DOUGLAS MCGREGOR: That's an important question, and not enough people have good answers at this point. I think all of the lies that have been told for more than a year-and-a-half, about 'the Ukrainians are winning,' 'the Ukrainian cause is just,' 'the Russians are evil,' 'the Russians are incompetent'... all of that is collapsing. And it's collapsing because what is happening on the battlefield is horrific.
Ukrainians now, we think, have lost 400,000 men killed, in battle. Now we were talking 300-350 thousand a few months ago. The last month of this supposed counter-offensive, which was supposed to sweep the battlefield, they lost at least 40,000 killed. We don't even know how many people have been wounded, but we know that probably upwards of 40 or 50,000 soldiers are amputees. We know the hospitals are full. And we know that Ukrainian units at the platoon and company level, that's with anywhere from 50 to 150 to 200 men, are, in piecemeal fashion surrendering to the Russians. Not because they don't want to fight. It's because they can't fight anymore. They have so many wounded they can't evacuate them. And commanders are saying, well, if I can't evacuate my wounded I'm going to surrender, because otherwise the wounded will die. And so they call the Russians, they all speak Russian, and tell them on the radio, 'Look, I've got 50-60 wounded here, I'm going to surrender because I don't want them to be killed.' And the Russians from the very beginning have always treatedUkrainian soldiers very fairly, and very gently. And so they know they're not going to be abused or mistreated. They know they can actually be exchanged for Russian prisoners in the future. So they are surrendering. I think we're going to see this army that we've been spending so heavily on, increasingly melt away.
[...] And again, all of this happens in a way that is just not reported in the West. And in the meantime, rather than admit that this is a terrible tragedy, that should be ended, on humanitarian grounds if no other, that the killing should stop — as President Trump said, "Stop the killing" — we're going to continue. And this puts the Russians in the unhappy position of marching further West. Because from the very beginning, Putin and his advisers were never interested in war with NATO, or the United States. That's why you've had such incrementalism: this slow grind of movement forward, defensive operations for a long period to build up the force, and then continued offensive operations. They have over 300,000 combat troops in reserve in Russia. And I think they're sitting there and not being released to fight, because President Putin anticipates the possibility that we will intervene in Western Ukraine. And if we intervene in Western Ukraine, the Russians will be ready for that. And the consequences for us, and for NATO, will be devastating, because we are not ready to fight the Russians.
TC: Why?
DM: I think the readiness has been on the decline for a long time. We've had a steady, almost uninterrupted decline in the discipline that makes soldiers fight. Discipline is a tough thing. We don't always understand it. Discipline is a form of habit. And you build those habits over time, through repetition. But you also build it under stress, under pressure, so that it sinks in. And then you build cohesion, within the framework of those units. You don't build cohesion when you're dividing the force on racial grounds; when you're pushing people who are clearly unqualified, up the ranks to command; when you're rewarding people for anything other than demonstrated character, competence, and intelligence, All of those things are demoralising, destructive to military establishments. The army and the marines are suffering with it. So is the airforce and the navy. And there's no easy fix. And these cracks —they're just cracks at the moment — will become giant fissures if you go to war.
[...] People like me and others worry that if we get into a confrontation, that we cannot win, because the world has changed, warfare has changed, integrated air defences will knock almost everything that flies out of the sky, that we will then fall back on a nuclear deterrent; a tactical nuclear weapon that says, 'if you keep advancing, we'll have to use a nuclear weapon.' And we don't want to go there. Because the notion that there are so-called tactical nukes ... you've heard that expression, 'Oh, it's just a little nuke, so that won't precipitate a major war'? ... the use of any nuclear weapon is going to precipitate an escalation, very rapidly, because you're opponents will assume if they don't use their nuclear weapons, they're going to lose them.
So we're living in a terrible dilemma right now. The smartest thing that we can do, is end this war.
TC: What is Russia's objective, do you believe? Assuming that objectives change over the course of a war.
DM: Of course. Well the original objective, obviously, was very different. I mean, if they'd made peace with the Russians, back in, let's say March or April. I think the Russians would've retained very little territory, probably only Luhansk and Donetsk, the two so-called breakaway provinces. And I think there would have been guarantees of neutrality for Ukraine. And guarantees of equal rights before the law, for Russians. And that's what people don't understand. Most of this has to do with abuse, meted out to Russians, in Ukraine, by the Ukrainian government. And this of course is this radical nationalist government that came to power in Kiev in 2014. And almost immediately, as soon as that government came into power it started launching a war against the so-called "breakaway provinces."
And Putin kept trying, and trying, and trying — the Minsk Accords were another good example — trying to get to a solution that would not involve confrontation. Now we know, of course, thanks to Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, that the Minsk Accords were just a ruse, a way to kill time, and give the Ukrainians more time to build up their forces. To build up their forces forces for what? And it's pretty clear they were building up for an offensive against Russia.
And of course the next step was, that we bring in our missiles, and station them in Eastern Ukraine, which puts them a couple of minutes away from all of Russia's cities, and all of Russia's nuclear deterrent. So this was unacceptable.
So that original deal is gone now. And the question is what will the Russians accept. Well, I think they're going to demand that whatever remains of Ukraine — "rump Ukraine" is what people are calling it now — most of what's probably west of the Dnieper river has to be neutral, it can't be part of NATO. The Russians will never tolerate NATO forces on Ukrainian soil. Because we've demonstrated conclusively, that we are fundamentally hostile to Russia. So that's the minimal requirement. How that's governed, that's another question. Who knows? I'm sure Moscow would want to have some say in that government, and who is there to ensure that behind the scenes they are not once again subjected to the treatment that we subjected them to in the Minsk Accords.
TC: What is the Ukrainian objective?
DM: I think more and more Ukrainians just want to survive this. And that's becoming very hard. And Zelensky and the radicals around him are basically committed to fighting this war to the last Ukrainian.
And of course I'm sure that Mr Zelensky and his friends are anxious at some point to retire to their estates in Florida, or Venice, or Cyprus, to collect on the billions that they've managed to steal or siphon from all the aid that we've provided. Remember Ukraine is probably one of the most corrupt places in the world. A friend of mine who had spent time in the old Soviet Union, and also lived in Mexico, said, 'It's hard to believe this, but, Ukraine is more corrupt than Mexico!' .
TC: Wow.
DM: I think that's true. This is a world-class disaster. Fourteen million Ukrainians have left the nation, presumaby never to return, because when they were asked in Germany, or France, or Croatia, or Spain, or wherever they go: 'We will never go back.' So, what are you going to do with this country?
And then of course we had the usual suspects: the great agricultural business conglomerates, along with BlackRock, who had their eyes on the fertile Ukraine ground in Western Ukraine. I suppose there'll be a big effort to get control of that in some fashion. That may not work, though, once the war ends, with the complete and utter defeat of the Ukrainian regime.
TC: Who is Zelensky, exactly? How would you charactise Zelensky? George W. Bush called him, "our generation's Winston Churchill."
DM: Well, this is "Dubya", right? Not a very thoughtful man. He [Zelensky] was a comeditan who made a living acting on stage, frequently pretending to be a transvestite, doing things with various body parts that I won't go into, and he was picked up by an oligarch named Kolomoyskyi.
Kolomoyskyi is the individual who's probable more responsible than anybody else for funding this atrocity we call the Azov Regiment, that runs around with the swastikas and Nazi gear, and so forth. And he was picked and then blessed by Victoria Nuland and the State Department as their man. Now when he originally ran for office, he ran on a peace platform. And he was overwhelmingly elected across the country because he said, 'If I am elected as your president, I will make peace with Russia.'
Ukrainians didn't want to go to war with Russia. They were looking for a way out of this, and a resolution to the crisis. Of course, once he was in there he took a different road. And I can't help but think that that road was defined for him by us.
TC: Who is Victoria Nuland?
DM: Oh, goodness gracious. All these hard questions. [Laughter]. I do not know Victoria Nuland personally. I know Fred Kagan, and his brother Bob is married to her. And she's a long-term committed Neocon. This is someone I would not characterise as either Democrat or Republican. These are people with this agenda; and the agenda says until the entire world is garrisoned by US forces, and is converted forcibly to some form of democracy that we approve of, the world will not be safe and we must to fight. And I think in the case of Russia, Russia has special appeal, because I think these people have ancestors who came from that region of the world, and have a permanent axe to grind with Russia. Which of course I don't. I don't think most Americans do. Nor do I think anybody in government should shape policy based on whatever unhappiness their ancestors experienced in a place like Russia.
So that's it in a nutshell. But I think that's enough. And wherever she goes, usually there is conflict, crisis, and fighting. And she's a strong proponent of fighting to the last Ukrainian.
TC: Does she, do you think, have relevant experience that would qualify her to be in charge of this war?
DM: Well obviously she does. But, you know, it's sort of like asking somebody who has never snaked a drain, or replaced a garbage disposal, to be a plumber. I think we have a lot of those in Washington. She's not the only one. So, no, I don't think she understands the gravity of the situation.
These are the same people, [Defence Secretary] Tony Blinken is in this with [National Security Adviser Jake] Sullivan [who] will tell you, 'The Russians are weak. The Russian economy is fragile. The Russian armed forces are poor, their generals are terrible, and they can't possibly win. All we have to do is to keep up the pressure and they will collapse.' Well, that's been a hell of a strategy. And it's killed large numbers of people, and created millions of refugees, and destroyed the country, but it hasn't hurt Russia. And Russia today is stronger than it has been in 30 or 40 years. You have a Russian military establishment that is now more potent and more capable than the Riussian military was in the mid-1980s.
TC: What do you think the casualty numbers are in Russia?
DM: That's a hard one to estimate. I think probably forty to fifty thousand killed, maybe another 40-50,000 wounded
TC: In total?
DM: Yes.
TC: As compared to the Ukrainian...
DM: 400,000 dead...
TC: You believe those numbers are roughly accurate.
DM: Yes. Absolutely.
TC: 50,000 [compared] to 400,000. That's a much smaller country, a much smaller military ... that's grotesque.
DM: Oh, it is. [...] And we estimate that at least 60,000 children from Ukraine have disappeared, vanished, since this war began. Where are they? [For a hellish clue, see p. 68 of our Feb. 2023 issue. - Ed.] What about all of the women, who have been sold into prostitution, that once lived in Ukraine. This war is a catastrophe. The people "bathing in blood" are in Kiev and Washington, not in Moscow [as the official narrative frames it]. And this sort of thing [propaganda] is going to play well until it can't. And that's the sad part. We're going to see this whole thing collapse and implode. It's coming.
TC: And with it NATO?
DM: I would think so because the Europeans right now, Germany is well into a recession. It has systematically de-industrialised itself by casting its lot with the anti-Russian crowd. And remember that in Europe, it was not very difficult to supply stereotypes, left over from the Second World War, of the Soviet armed forces. The Soviet army was, you know, an exercise in barbarism and savagery, mass rape, you name it.That's not Russia today. Russia today is a very different society, very different state.
And that's been Putin's effort from day one. He's been interested in restoring Russia, as an Orthodox Christian state, with a true national identity and a strong national culture. That's probably another reason why so many people want to destroy Russia. Because it's the last European state that has not been flooded with foreigners, and turned into some polyglot experiment. Which is failing badly, by the way, because at some point, all of these unwanted people in Europe, and for that matter here as well I suspect, when things fall apart economically, it's going to get very hard on them. Because people are going to look around and say, 'Wait a minute, I'm an American, who are you, what are you doing here? Why are you living that way.Why are you being subsidised?' 'I'm a German, you don't belong here.'
TC: I'm getting fourteen hundred bucks in retirement that I paid into my entire life, and you just show up from Congo and you're getting twenty-two hundred bucks.
DM: Well here's another one. The president anounced yesterday, on one of these tweets — somebody tweets for him, obviously — that the people who have lost everything in Hawaii — thousands, lost everything [in the August 2023 wildfires] — are going to receive a one-time payment of $700. Now, I haven't been to Hawaii for a long time ... I'm not even sure I've ever been there ... but I know, that seven hundred dollars isn't going to take care of a family for very long. But in the meantime, hundreds of millions, billions of dollars continue to flow into this black hole called Ukraine. Which I think is an exercise in fraud, deceit and criminality, to be blunt.
So when is it going to stop. When are we going to take care of Hawaii? Let's go back to Ohio where we had the [February 2023 train] derailment, and the chemical spill. Four thousand human beings living in this area, the water is still not fit to drink, as I understand it. We wouldn't even invest the money to move those people to a safer area, even if it meant temporary housing, or permanent housing, until this thing was cleaned up. What have we done?
This is the problem. It is America last. On every level. The last people who are consulted. The last people who are benefitting on anything that goes on in Washington are Americans. This cannot go on. It's got to end. And I think it will end. But unfortunately, like everything else, we're going to have to be pushed over the cliff, into the abyss. I think that's where we're headed.
TC: Well on that cheerful note, retired colonel Douglas McGregor, thank you.