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MY TRANSCRIPT (and my emphasis)
Dan Ball
Here now to discuss the latest on the war in Ukraine
and Biden’s claims, former adviser to the Secretary of Defence
under President Trump, Colonel Doug Mcgregor. Colonel, welcome
back to the programme. Um you don’t get into the politics much and I appreciate that
because you’re a tried and true, good, old, salty, dog warrior –
and I love that about you, Colonel. But let me just ask you: the
alleged sitting Commander-in-Chief president is blaming
all of our problems in this country on Vladimir Putin. Is
he right or is he wrong?
Colonel (retired) Doug Mcgregor
Well, I think most Americans understand that what’s happening right now in Ukraine has very little impact on us here other than to make matters worse than they already were. But the notion that somehow another Putin is the author of our problems is a lot of nonsense. And the … the really sad part of all of this is that, in order to persuade Americans that what’s happening in Ukraine really does affect their lives profoundly, has involved using these terms of genocidal warfare. These are unsubstantiated allegations, there’s no real basis in fact. No one is checking his [me: Biden’s] facts. No one in the media is looking at facts, they’re looking at hyperbole. They’re trying to whip up, mobilise anti-Russian sentiment. It’s a pleasant distraction – from the standpoint of the media and the politicians – from the disaster that you described here at home, but not much more.
Dan Ball
Yes, yeah, why the push? You know, the two things I keep hearing now this week, colonel, is the words ‘genocide’ and ‘Putin might use nukes’. That’s all I keep hearing and those two things obviously would push the American people – I think this government thinks, and maybe folks around the world – into a war with Russia. So do you feel – like I feel – that these two narratives and talking points are to try, and again push us, to add support not only for our money going over there but potentially troops and putting boots on the ground (which I think is the wrong thing to do)?
Colonel (retired) Doug Mcgregor
Well I … I think we have to take that into account. First of all, the notion of using nuclear weapons is nonsense. There are only … only one set of conditions under which the Russians would actually consider it and that is if we launched nuclear weapons at them, obviously. And, secondly, if suddenly they had a million men on the scale of the … the German army in World War II standing on their borders. Neither of those situations really exists, so the notion of the Russians using nuclear weapons is nonsense. And we know that the prevailing winds in Europe blow from west to east, which means that if the Russians were, for some reason, to use the nuclear weapon in Eastern Europe, the fallout would stretch across Siberia, Russia, all the way to Manchuria, China, uh Korea and Japan. So no, that’s complete nonsense. I … I do worry a great deal about the potential for, you know, uh falsehoods. In other words, somebody claims …
Dan Ball [interjects]
That’s what I’m worried about.
Colonel (retired) Doug Mcgregor
.... that the Russians have done something, you know, that … that’s real. And it’s going to get worse right now because we’re in the final phase of this war. Right now, there are between 40 and 60 000 Ukrainian troops left in eastern Ukraine. They’re in an area of about 150 to 200 square miles. They’re immobilised, they’re entrenched in defensive positions. They have no fuel. They have only enough ammunition to sustain themselves for a few … few more weeks. They don’t have enough water. They have no medical evacuation capability. And they’ve got a lot of civilians who are actually Russians living in the area. They’re now surrounded. And the Russian army is going to move very carefully to avoid civilian casualties there, but they will annihilate these Ukrainian troops. And my fear is that when it becomes abundantly clear that all of these discussions about the uh collapsing Russian army and the great victorious Ukrainians fall apart, that then people really will say ‘Well, we’ve got to do something or we in Washington who have made all these ridiculous claims will look ridiculous yet again’. That worries me and I think it’s a valid one.
Colonel (retired) Doug Mcgregor
Well, I think most Americans understand that what’s happening right now in Ukraine has very little impact on us here other than to make matters worse than they already were. But the notion that somehow another Putin is the author of our problems is a lot of nonsense. And the … the really sad part of all of this is that, in order to persuade Americans that what’s happening in Ukraine really does affect their lives profoundly, has involved using these terms of genocidal warfare. These are unsubstantiated allegations, there’s no real basis in fact. No one is checking his [me: Biden’s] facts. No one in the media is looking at facts, they’re looking at hyperbole. They’re trying to whip up, mobilise anti-Russian sentiment. It’s a pleasant distraction – from the standpoint of the media and the politicians – from the disaster that you described here at home, but not much more.
Dan Ball
Yes, yeah, why the push? You know, the two things I keep hearing now this week, colonel, is the words ‘genocide’ and ‘Putin might use nukes’. That’s all I keep hearing and those two things obviously would push the American people – I think this government thinks, and maybe folks around the world – into a war with Russia. So do you feel – like I feel – that these two narratives and talking points are to try, and again push us, to add support not only for our money going over there but potentially troops and putting boots on the ground (which I think is the wrong thing to do)?
Colonel (retired) Doug Mcgregor
Well I … I think we have to take that into account. First of all, the notion of using nuclear weapons is nonsense. There are only … only one set of conditions under which the Russians would actually consider it and that is if we launched nuclear weapons at them, obviously. And, secondly, if suddenly they had a million men on the scale of the … the German army in World War II standing on their borders. Neither of those situations really exists, so the notion of the Russians using nuclear weapons is nonsense. And we know that the prevailing winds in Europe blow from west to east, which means that if the Russians were, for some reason, to use the nuclear weapon in Eastern Europe, the fallout would stretch across Siberia, Russia, all the way to Manchuria, China, uh Korea and Japan. So no, that’s complete nonsense. I … I do worry a great deal about the potential for, you know, uh falsehoods. In other words, somebody claims …
Dan Ball [interjects]
That’s what I’m worried about.
Colonel (retired) Doug Mcgregor
.... that the Russians have done something, you know, that … that’s real. And it’s going to get worse right now because we’re in the final phase of this war. Right now, there are between 40 and 60 000 Ukrainian troops left in eastern Ukraine. They’re in an area of about 150 to 200 square miles. They’re immobilised, they’re entrenched in defensive positions. They have no fuel. They have only enough ammunition to sustain themselves for a few … few more weeks. They don’t have enough water. They have no medical evacuation capability. And they’ve got a lot of civilians who are actually Russians living in the area. They’re now surrounded. And the Russian army is going to move very carefully to avoid civilian casualties there, but they will annihilate these Ukrainian troops. And my fear is that when it becomes abundantly clear that all of these discussions about the uh collapsing Russian army and the great victorious Ukrainians fall apart, that then people really will say ‘Well, we’ve got to do something or we in Washington who have made all these ridiculous claims will look ridiculous yet again’. That worries me and I think it’s a valid one.
Links
to other interviews of the same colonel posted on this blog:
https://paulzanotelli.ch/blog/geopolitics/ukraine/dissenters/colonel-douglas-macgregor/zelensky_no-hero-a-puppet-putting-huge-numbers-of-his-own-own-population-at-unnecessary-risk.html
https://paulzanotelli.ch/blog/geopolitics/ukraine/dissenters/colonel-douglas-macgregor/we-should-be-de-escalating-not-escalating.html
https://paulzanotelli.ch/blog/geopolitics/ukraine/dissenters/colonel-douglas-macgregor/putin-has-priced-in-the-cost-he-s-not-a-fool.html
https://paulzanotelli.ch/blog/geopolitics/ukraine/dissenters/colonel-douglas-macgregor/zelensky_no-hero-a-puppet-putting-huge-numbers-of-his-own-own-population-at-unnecessary-risk.html
https://paulzanotelli.ch/blog/geopolitics/ukraine/dissenters/colonel-douglas-macgregor/we-should-be-de-escalating-not-escalating.html
https://paulzanotelli.ch/blog/geopolitics/ukraine/dissenters/colonel-douglas-macgregor/putin-has-priced-in-the-cost-he-s-not-a-fool.html
Lausanne, the above
was published on the eighteenth day
of the fourth month of the year two
thousand and twenty-two.
