Weapons to Ukraine
Over One Billion in Cash and Weapons to Ukraine
Biden Admin Has No Idea Where the Weapons Go
Friday, April 22, 2022
The Endless War In Ukraine 4/21/2022
By Douglas Macgregor
Russian T-90 Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
President Joe Biden and the U.S. Congress have committed the American People to a moral crusade designed to justify an open-ended proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. Proxy war—a conflict in which the U.S. is aligned with a belligerent (Ukraine) but is not directly involved—appeals to Washington because Ukrainians, not Americans, fight or die in the conflict.
Of course, blurring the line between war and peace with Moscow is dangerous; only more so in Ukraine, because Russian Military Operations cannot be stopped unless the American People are prepared to go to war. This recognition has not prevented an expanding U.S. military commitment to Ukraine in the form of military advice and materiel assistance, but U.S. assistance cannot change the reality that more weapons and better intelligence support from Washington and its NATO allies will not secure victory for Ukrainian Forces.
Consider history. America’s war against Japan in the Pacific was decided more by the sheer weight of U.S. Naval Power than by any specific weapon system or platform. The war in Ukraine is no different. New weapon systems in the hands of Ukrainian forces compelled Russian formations to adjust their tactics, but Russian strategy toward Ukraine is unchanged.
There is little doubt that the massive influx of weapon systems from the U.S. and its NATO allies has extended the war in Ukraine well beyond its normal end point, but forces that are immobilized in defensive positions do not win wars. In war, the exaggerated faith in human courage and will power is always a poor answer to overwhelming, accurate, and devastating firepower.
Before sending more weapons to Ukraine, President Biden and his bipartisan supporters in the Senate might want to reconsider fighting the war to the last Ukrainian. Washington must explain to the American People what the U.S. gains strategically by sacrificing Ukraine in a war Ukrainians cannot win. Otherwise, Washington’s ruling class will end up like President Lyndon Johnson and his Cabinet in George Ball’s words, “Like a flock of buzzards sitting on a fence, sending the young men off to be killed.”
Washington’s timing for the proxy war in Ukraine is also problematic for reasons that have nothing to do with Ukraine. President Biden’s approval ratings are falling through the basement. Thanks to open borders, Illegal drug, and human trafficking is occurring on an industrial scale to the point where fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 through 45.
America’s economy is decelerating and sliding into recession, or worse. Supply chain disruptions that predate the war in Ukraine are worsening with the result that global prices, especially for oil, natural gas, food, and fertilizer are soaring. It’s no surprise that beyond the confines of the Washington Beltway, many Americans think public order and the rule of law, the hallmarks of American Civilization, are breaking down.
There is no doubt that the Western information campaign that demonizes Russia and ignores the last 30 years of U.S. policy decisions that made the conflict in Ukraine inevitable has had an impact. Few, if any, Western News Media point out that in Ukraine, media are treated as an instrument for state interests. The tendency is to blacken Russia’s image and results in an acute lack of Western interest in discovering crimes that Ukrainian forces perpetrate.
Thanks to politicized American media that largely exclude political views that challenge the Biden Administration’s prevailing narrative on Ukraine, there are plenty of senior officers in the Pentagon and in U.S. European Command embraces the idea of war with Russia. In addition to believing that Washington is morally obligated to lead another dubious Wilsonian crusade for human rights and liberal democracy in Eastern Europe, many senior officers also harbor concerns that Russian success in Ukraine will further weaken America’s national credibility; a motive for the 1965 decision to intervene in Vietnam.
Meanwhile, Americans outside of the Washington bubble are beginning to see the Biden Administration and its supporting cast in congress as an old warship at sea that is “not under command;” a battleship without a captain that behaves like a runaway train. There is a sense that in the absence of strong presidential leadership, moral posturing in U.S. foreign policy eventually translates into pressure for U.S. military action against Russia that, given the choice, most Americans do not want.
Washington’s ruling political class thinks it stands so high as to be out of the reach of fate and accountability. It’s not the case. The last 20 years of failed military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq have taught Americans that moral pretensions do not make America stronger. In truth, conflicts fought in the name of lofty moral principles intensify violence and make realistic postwar settlements difficult, if not possible. Nowhere is this difficulty more pronounced than in Ukraine.
Douglas Macgregor, Col. (ret.) is a senior fellow with The American Conservative, the former advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, a decorated combat veteran, and the author of five books. His latest is Margin of Victory, (Naval Institute Press, 2016).
Saturday, April 16, 2022
REAL AMERICA -- Dan Ball W/ Colonel Doug Macgregor 4/15/2022
The Latest On Russia-Ukraine War
One America News Network Published April 15, 2022
Truth about the war in Ukraine
Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Judging Freedom 4/12/2022
Judge Napolitano
Colonel Douglas Macgregor - Russia Ukraine War Day 48
YouTube (video and audio):
Audio Only:
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
The American Conservative 4/5/2022
Biden’s Folly In Ukraine
President Biden and the foreign policy uniparty are restoring the strategic condition Washington feared in 1940.
U.S. President Joe Biden gestures as he delivers remarks on the jobs report for the month of March from the State Dining Room of the White House on April 01, 2022. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
APRIL 5, 2022|12:01 AM
DOUGLAS MACGREGOR
Americans find it difficult to determine whether the Biden administration’s policy decisions regarding Ukraine are the product of a deliberate strategy, extraordinary incompetence, or some combination of both. Threatening Russia, a nuclear armed power, with regime change and then annunciating a nuclear weapons policy that allows for the United States’ first-strike use of nuclear weapons under “extreme circumstances”—responding to an invasion by conventional forces, or chemical or biological attacks—suggests President Biden and his administration really are out of touch with reality.
American voters instinctively grasp the truth that Americans have nothing to gain from a war with Russia, declared or undeclared. A short trip to almost any supermarket or gas station in America explains why. Last week, inflation hit its highest point in nearly 40 years and gas prices have skyrocketed since the conflict in Ukraine began.
Thanks to the Western media’s non-stop dissemination of unfavorable images of Russia’s leaders and its military, it would appear that President Biden is able to espouse any narrative that suits his purpose. Obscuring the true origins of this tragic conflict, however—NATO’s eastward expansion to include Ukraine—cannot alter strategic reality. Moscow can no more lose the war with Ukraine than Washington could lose a war with Mexico.
Ukraine’s proximity to Russia gives Moscow unconstrained and immediate access to Russia’s reserves of military manpower, equipment, and firepower. Notwithstanding Moscow’s determination to avoid unnecessary collateral damage to Ukraine’s population and infrastructure, Russian Air and Ground Forces are at liberty to methodically destroy Ukrainian resistance in detail.
Russia’s commodity-based economy, with its abundance of food, energy, minerals, and other resources, creates enormous strategic depth for Moscow on the Eurasian landmass. These resources make Moscow Beijing’s natural strategic partner, thus securing Moscow’s Asian border. Moscow’s role in stabilizing Central Asia also makes Russian strength indispensable for the success of China’s Belt and Road Initiative rooted as it is in the historical Silk Road, linking the economies of East Asia to Europe, Africa, and the Near East.
At the same time, Washington’s frequent use of financial sanctions have severely weakened, if not wrecked trust in the U.S. led global financial system. It is far more likely that countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa will either bypass sanctions to buy discounted Russian and Belorussian commodities or simply refuse to enforce them.
To minimize the impact of financial sanctions imposed by Washington and the European Union, Russia began “de-dollarizing” its economy years ago. Unburdened by the kind of odious sovereign debt that plagues Washington, Moscow has been able to stabilize the ruble with interest rate increases, and links to gold reserves. Now, de-dollarization is spreading. China, India, and Saudi Arabia are introducing de-dollarization policies as an anti-sanction measure. Saudi Arabia’s offer to sell oil in Chinese yuan raises real questions about the future of the petrodollar.
Despite Japan’s public display of solidarity with Washington, Tokyo really made its bed with Eurasia when Tokyo signed on to membership in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Program (RCEP), the world’s largest trade bloc. Predictably, Tokyo already declared it will not ban Russian oil and natural gas imports and Japan will continue to work with Russia on important joint economic projects.
Europeans breathed a huge sigh of relief on April 1, when the Russian Government announced that Moscow will not cut off sales to European buyers of Russian natural gas, as long as buyers set up accounts with Gazprombank, where payments in foreign currency will be converted to rubles. Still, Europeans will soon have to decide whether to reject trade and cooperation with governments in Eurasia that resist Western liberalism, with its universalist pretensions, or confront the specter of civil unrest at home.
Russia’s enormous share of energy and food in European and global markets always meant war between Russia and Ukraine would be a nightmare scenario. It was no surprise when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned on April 2 of the serious worldwide consequences of the Russian war in Ukraine, saying, “We must ensure that this war comes to an end quickly.”
Scholz is right. Price surges in energy and food will now lead to expanded drilling for oil and gas around the world, as well as increased farming for wheat, barley, and corn outside of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. But these actions will not compensate for the looming structural commodity deficits or supply chain problems affecting fertilizer and metals.
Washington’s ruling class has a long record of misjudging strategic reality. Seeking to advance NATO through Ukraine to Russia’s western border may well be the worst blunder in American foreign policy since the end of World War II, but Washington learns nothing and remembers nothing. After the defeat of Anglo-French military power in June 1940, the combined power of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Imperial Japan was unassailable. Had the three remained in alliance, neither Washington, nor any combination of powers, could have challenged them for decades.
President Biden and Washington’s uniparty are fostering the domination of the Eurasian landmass by a collective arrangement of the world’s leading economic powers including Russia, China, India, Japan, Central and Southeast Asia, thereby restoring the strategic condition Washington feared in 1940. American voters would prefer that Washington focus on shoring up American economic prosperity, controlling inflation and restoring the rule of law, not war with Russia.
President Biden would be wise to follow Scholz’s example and work to end the dangerous conflict in Ukraine. Even so, for the indefinite future the use of U.S. military power in the Eastern Hemisphere will now involve the potential for war with more than one first-class power in more than one region of the world at a time. Well done, Mr. President.
Douglas Macgregor, Col. (ret.) is a senior fellow with The American Conservative, the former advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, a decorated combat veteran, and the author of five books.
Monday, April 4, 2022
Jackson Hinkle - The Dive 4/4/2022
Jackson Hinkle - The Dive
Former Top Pentagon Advisor Col. Douglas Macgregor On Ukraine War — Is Russia Losing?
Backup video link:
Of Interest: BUCHA MASSACRE? A UKRAINIAN FALSE FLAG?
BUCHA MASSACRE? A UKRAINIAN FALSE FLAG?
3 April 2022 by Larry Johnson
Bucha is the latest shiny object that the Western cats are chasing mindlessly without taking time to think critically about what Russia is actually doing on the ground. Russia’s invasion on February 24 was not a classic military attack. What do I mean? If Russia was intent on conquering and subjugating Ukraine without regard to the fate of Ukrainian civilians it would have launched massive missile and airstrikes on all major cities, bridges, airfields, railroads and communication systems. It did not do that. Not my opinion.
The first phase of Russia’s special military operation consisted of the following:
Moved troops and armored columns into Ukraine from three directions–North, East and South.
Deployed only 200,000 troops while maintaining key reserves inside Russia along the Ukrainian border against a Ukrainian Army estimated to number 600,000.
Avoided attacking communication systems leaving cell phone and internet largely intact.
Took control of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe–Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant–but kept the electricity flowing.
Supported offensives by the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics against Ukrainian forces in the East.
Gradually surrounded Kiev from the North but did not fight any key battles to occupy outlying cities.
Destroyed Ukrainian ground radar, key airfields and military bases in Western Ukraine with precision missiles.
Sealed the southern coast of Ukraine with the Russian Navy.
Launched an assault on Mariupol, a key Ukrainian port in the South, and systematically annihilated the neo-Nazi AZOV battalion (Russia now controls all of Mariupol except for the steel plant and continues to methodically eliminate the remaining defenders).
The immediate effect of this operation divided and froze the Ukrainian Army in four geographical regions-North, South, East and West. During the first two weeks the Ukrainians and NATO did not know where Russia’s major blow would fall. Russia’s initial success in eliminating Ukraine’s Air Force as a combat effective unit and the destruction of key military bases and fuel depots made it impossible for Ukraine to dispatch reinforcements to Donbas and Mariupol.
During the past week Russia has effected a tactical redeployment of forces that originally surrounded Kiev. It is reported that those units moved west and are likely to be used as block force that will be part of a broader effort to defeat the bulk of the Ukraine Army now virtually surrounded in the eastern part of the Donbas.
With its limited ability to move troops or resupply frontline forces, Ukraine is relying on propaganda and information warfare to try to weaken Russia and entice NATO to join the fray. Here is a good summary of these efforts courtesy of Nighvision:
For instance when the Russian POW torture video came out, it was Ukraine that cried “fake” until days later all western ‘authorities’ were forced to admit it was real.
When the ‘maternity hospital’ falseflag in Mariupol occurred, Kiev supporters blamed Russia and once again Russia was the one proven right and vindicated when the pregnant girl at the center of it herself released an interview completely refuting Ukrainnian lies, and stating that not only did Ukrainian soldiers turn the hospital into a barracks but stole the precious food from pregnant women and then shelled the hospital themselves.
When Ukrainie claimed Russia bombed an ‘innocent’ civilian mall, yet the very next moment the Russian MOD released detailed videos showing precisely how Ukrop forces positioned mobile artillery in the parking garage of the said ‘mall’.
When Ukrops claimed Russia tried to blow up the Zaporizhzhia plant, yet security footage showed that as a Russian security force arrived, it was fired upon by an RPG from Ukrop positions in one of the administrative buildings of the plant.
When the famed American journalist was killed in Irpin right outside Kiev a month ago, and all Ukrainian supporters shouted Russia, but the entire incident was quickly swept under the rug when the journalist’s own friend/companion in an interview stated they were fired upon by Ukrop troops at a Ukrop checkpoint miles away from the nearest Russian forces.
Early in the war many in the West were scammed by the story of a remarkable Ukrainian allegedly downing seven Russian combat planes. It too was a lie:
In one widely shared video, the Ghost of Kyiv chases down a Russian plane and then shoots it out of the sky. In Ukrainian, a voice says: “There’s a plane. There’s another one. It’s about to crash.”
This is a sequence from the video game Digital Combat Simulator World. “This footage is from DCS, but is nevertheless made out of respect for the ‘Ghost of Kiev,'” the person who uploaded the video to YouTube on February 24 writes, using an alternate transliteration for Ukraine’s capital. “If he is real, may God be with him; if he is fake, I pray for more like ‘him.'” A spokesman for Digital Combat Simulator World has confirmed to the Reuters news agency that the material is indeed from the game.
A video report from Gonzalo Lira demonstrates beyond doubt that Ukraine is staging propaganda videos showing the alleged destruction of Russian tanks. The smoking tank hulls are actually Ukrainian vehicles. Propaganda BTFO
This brings us to the latest “atrocity” Ukraine insists was carried out by Russia–Bucha, a suburb of Kiev. Here is The Guardian’s account:
As Ukrainian armoured columns rolled into Bucha, a town north-west of the capital, they found streets blocked by burned-out Russian tanks and military vehicles, and strewn with the bodies of civilians whom locals said had been killed by the invading forces without provocation.
Here’s the problem. Bucha was declared ‘completely liberated’ of Russian troops by its mayor on Thursday, March 31. The dead lying in the streets are all wearing a white arm band, which is worn by Ukrainians to signal to Russian troops they are not backing the Ukrainian Army.
If the city was liberated on 31 March why are the bodies still lying in place three days later? Why were they not gathered up by grieving relatives? This report is having the predicable effect in the West–pundits and politicians are demanding a NATO military response. Russia is not fazed by this latest propaganda barb; it is calling for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to present evidence refuting the charge.
One final point, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Fox News’ Bret Baer that the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion has “fully integrated” with the Ukrainian military
Ian Miles Cheong@stillgray Bret Baier asked Zelensky about Azov Battalion’s shooting of Russian POWs. Zelensky’s answer? “They are what they are.” Zelensky also claims that some were prosecuted after 2014 and given prison sentences. He doesn’t mention that those convictions were overturned.
There you have it–a President who is a Jew supporting a neo-Nazi military unit that wants to rid Ukraine of Jews. If you want to read more about Azov go here.
Sunday, April 3, 2022
Please Read: Fake account on Telegram
PLEASE READ: It was just brought to my attention that there is a Telegram account that is impersonating Colonel Macgregor. If you are currently following this fake account, please unfollow.
There are currently only 4 "official" platforms for Colonel Macgregor:
Website: http://www.douglasmacgregor.com/
All others pretending to be Colonel Macgregor are fake.
Thank you,
Carol
Friday, April 1, 2022
The Scott Horton Show 3/31/2022
Colonel Douglas Macgregor: The US is Deliberately Ignoring the Path to Peace in Ukraine.
On Antiwar Radio this week, Scott interviews Colonel Douglas Macgregor. Macgregor has recently been appearing on talk shows across the political spectrum, drawing on his deep experience as an officer and war planner to argue that Washington must prioritize peace in Eastern Europe. His arguments have drawn criticism from establishment lawmakers and their media allies who instead want to focus on hurting Russia. Macgregor lays out why this is a mistake and what Washington can do instead to bring about a quick end to this war. He also gives his account of where the war stands today. He argues that, despite what western media says, Ukraine has suffered a near-total defeat.
Discussed on the show:
“Is There A Path To Peace In Ukraine?” (The American Conservative)
“Inside the Pentagon’s Fight Over Russia” (Politico)
Douglas Macgregor, Col. (ret.) is a senior fellow with The American Conservative, the former advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, a decorated combat veteran, and the author of five books.
Of Interest: Military's Bloody Battle for Raqqa Seen as ‘Cautionary Tale’ as Pentagon Promises to Limit Civilian Deaths
In this July 27, 2017, file photo, a U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces fighter runs in front of a damaged building as he crosses a street on the front line in Raqqa, Syria. (Hussein Malla/AP File Photo)
31 Mar 2022
Military.com | By Travis Tritten
The U.S. military could have done more to protect civilians trapped in Raqqa, Syria, as it pummeled the city to rubble during a climactic battle with the Islamic State group in 2017, the Rand Corp. found in a Pentagon-ordered review released Thursday.
The brutal battle and ultimate U.S.-led coalition victory over the terror group came at a heavy price -- as many as 1,600 civilians were killed and much of the city, including residential neighborhoods, were leveled by intense American and coalition bombing, according to investigations by watchdog groups.
The most likely estimate of deaths due to the coalition is 774, said Rand, a nonprofit think tank frequently contracted by the Pentagon for research. Kurdish forces who helped the coalition fight on the ground reported recovering 4,000 civilians from the city rubble, though it remains unclear how they were killed, the Rand review said.
The U.S. coalition gave a much lower estimate of 178 killed.
The strategy to encircle the city, gather intelligence and strike from the sky, and rely on Kurdish allies on the ground to eliminate dug-in Islamic State fighters, who intentionally targeted residents, led to more civilian deaths and harm, including widespread destruction that left little future for the city, Rand found.
"Although coalition forces focused intently on the civilian casualty risk for each strike, they largely ignored the impact of their actions on civilian livelihoods over the long term," its review said. "As a result, Raqqa endured the most structural damage by density of any city in Syria."
About 60%-80% of the city was left uninhabitable after the conflict, it said.
Amnesty International and Airwars, a London-based nonprofit group that monitored the war, investigated the civilian death toll in 2019 and said it had gathered 1,000 names of victims, verified 641 deaths on the ground in Raqqa and estimated the total toll at 1,600.
In one instance, a five-story residential building sheltering families in the basement was destroyed by a coalition airstrike and at least 32 people, including 20 children, were killed, the two groups said. Another strike a week later killed 27 civilians in a nearby building, and many were relatives of the earlier victims.
Rand called the battle a "cautionary tale about civilian harm in 21st-century conflicts" that likely reveals how future conventional wars in cities will play out. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asked for the review as part of a larger ongoing effort to overhaul the military's efforts to reduce death and destruction on civilian populations when the U.S. goes to war.
The overhaul plans were unveiled in January, along with an initial Rand report detailing how the military has fallen short in its efforts to protect civilians. The secretary ordered the creation of a "civilian protection center of excellence" to coordinate and improve the efforts.
Austin's push was partly spurred by a botched U.S. strike during the Afghanistan withdrawal in August that killed 10 civilians, including children. Another strike in Baghuz, Syria, in 2019 killed about 70 civilians, including women and children, The New York Times reported in November.
Rand said the lessons of Raqqa are likely to be relevant for future conflicts. As the war on terrorism wanes, the Pentagon is focused on China and its growing military might and assertiveness, as well as Russia and its dangerous new stance on the world stage, as part of the new National Defense Strategy, a classified document turned over to Congress this week.
The unintentional deaths of innocents plagued the U.S. post-9/11 wars, because the military often relied on drones and air power in areas -- especially cities -- where no American troops are on the ground to guide or wave off strikes that threaten civilians.
In 2017, Raqqa had been the Islamic State's last stronghold after three years of war with the U.S. and its allies in Syria and Iraq, with the group's wave of global terrorist attacks including mass shootings and the video beheading of journalists and aid workers.
The U.S. and coalition partners, including the UK and France, bombarded the city between June and October in 2017 following months of preparation. There was a cap on the U.S. troops presence in Syria of 500, but by the end of the battle, there were about 2,000 troops deployed to the country because commanders were given the authority to exceed the cap if needed, Rand reported.
The Raqqa review found the U.S. and its allies followed the laws of war during the battle, and even went beyond international conventions when trying to protect Syrians who were hunkered down in the city after being occupied and terrorized by the Islamic State.
But the relatively small U.S. footprint meant a reliance on the allied Kurdish Self Defense Force troops and airpower. The U.S. "conducted an estimated 95% of the total airstrikes during the Raqqa operation and all of the artillery strikes," according to Rand.
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