Retired US Army Colonel on Ukraine war

Douglas Abbott Macgregor is a retired U.S. Army Colonel and government official, and an author, consultant, and television commentator.




One may agree or disagree with his analysis.
A friend sent it to me after a discussion due to my strong support of Ukraine in this conflict.
Its thought provoking,
Would like to hear opinions.

 

Russia attacked Ukraine. Ukraine is not a puppet of USA. That guy is full of it, IMHO.

One of the things I hate with this kind of "social media" news is that a date for the interview is unknown.

"U.S. representative Liz Cheney said of Macgregor "This is the Putin wing of the GOP."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-putin-wing-of-the-gop-liz-cheney-rails-against-col-doug-macgregor-for-calling-zelenskyy-a-puppet-putting-ukrainian-people-at-unnecessary-risk/ar-AAUFurY

 

My understanding is that the interview was a day or so after the incident of rockets falling in Poland.
Mr Macgregor appears to have profound knowledge of the current situation, and of history and the background that led to the current state of war with Ukraine.
If Russian is amassing 500K troops on border with Ukraine also in Belarus another major attack on Ukraine may be devastating already suffering nation.

The MSN article, is providing perspective.

 

Yes it is providing perspective by a fellow that Liz Cheney considers a mini-Putin. The Colonel's Wikipedia article is interesting.

quote:
In 2020, President Donald Trump proposed Macgregor as ambassador to Germany, but the Senate blocked the nomination. On November 11, 2020, a Pentagon spokesperson announced that Macgregor had been hired to serve as Senior Advisor to the Acting Secretary of Defense, a post he held for less than three months.

He's apparently a loser.

 

Here's the link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Macgregor

Another quote from the article

Macgregor said he believed Russia should be allowed to seize whatever parts of Ukraine it wanted.

 

I was sent this as well.
This is not matching what is being communicated in main stream media.

 

There's something like 4,000 Colonels in the US Army. It should not be considered so special that their opinion on this matter is worth anything special.

 

I'm a retired GS-15. When I was active, I could have supervised colonels. (Had I been in such an assignment; I was not.) I know we were dime-a-dozen and so were they. As a retired military member, I realize colonels can be a big deal...in that context. But otherwise, not really.

And while there are approximately 4,000 serving in the Army, that's active duty. There are likely tens of thousands more who are retired but still around (like this guy). Then there are all the colonels serving in the Reserve and Guard. And let's not forget the thousands more serving in the Air Force, Marines and (I hate typing this ) Space Force, plus the equivalent (captain) serving in the Navy and Coast Guard (active and reserve, too). Plus all the retirees from those services, too. And that's just the colonels.

So, to double down on Bill's point, these men and women hold and held respectable positions in our military with significant responsibilities. But there are so, so many of them that finding one (or a few) weirdos isn't that hard. Generals, too. Back in 2017 we had one as the National Security Advisor for about 10 minutes.

 

I'm not listening to a 34-minute video clip from a questionable source. Don't want to waste my time, and want to keep information hygiene.
More importantly: Why do you of all people have to rely on any English-language sources for info on a most important conflict in your birth country? Can't open "www.pravda.com.ua" in a browser? Need help finding good sources with better info and higher stakes in a situation? Weird.

P. S. the best man on my wedding is currently an infantry NCO on the frontlines. Why would I listen to a rando retired US officer? Huh?

 

I listened for a few seconds. It began with the Colonel being asked what it means that Ukraine bombed the two Russian bases deep in Russia, he said, "It means that the USA, the UK and NATO now know that Ukraine has lost the war."

That stupid comment made no sense to me and I stopped watching. I admit to being on a short fuse for this second video. I was expecting the video to be nonsense after the first youTube video in this thread.

 

Is Pravda Ukraine not the same as Pravda.com? As an ignorant English speaker, I know that Pravda.com is Russian-controlled media. I would expect the Ukrainian version to be the same, just not in English - like the way Amazon works. If the Ukraine version is safe, I would love to add it to the non-English news sources I check.

 

"Pravda" = Truth. The site is called "Ukrainska Pravda - Ukrainian Truth. It is pro-Ukraine. You have your choice of English, Russian or Ukrainian. The stories are from a Ukrainian standpoint - and there's a counter of Russian losses in the war - soldiers and equipment.

Appears to have been founded in 2000 by a person with a Georgian name - Repub. of Georgia that is. Gyorgiy Gongadze. I just checked - he was a Georgian-Ukrainian journalist who was murdered in 2000. His story here: https://www.google.com/search?q=Gyorgiy+Gongadze&oq=Gyorgiy+Gongadze&aqs=chrome..69i57j46i13i512.10799j0j7&client=ubuntu&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

Old Pravda (Russian) joke. Back 65 years ago, when I was in high school - Pravda (Truth) and Izvestia (Information) were the two main Russian news sources. The joke was about the Russian people's view of these : "In Pravda there is no information. In Izvestia, there is no truth."

 

VERY different sites. Ukrainian Pravda, as Johann noted, is founded by Gyorgiy Gongadze and is among the most respected online news sites in the country. Gyorgiy's murder sparked major protests when audio tapes resurfaced linking it to then-President and the Internal Affairs (police) Minister.

 

Awesome! Just as a personal note, I usually avoid the English-language section for non-English news sites. It's not that the reporting is wrong or anything, it's just that it's usually only a fraction of the news available in the site's native language. Google Translate, DeepL, and a good dictionary site are how I read the news in other languages.

Awesome, glad to know that they're different. Now I've got a good/better source for Ukrainian news. Especially now that the whole country has essentially been banned from Twitter.

 

Good job! Way to learn! Keep it up and at some point you'll hardly need them any more!

 

I definitely do not need to add Ukrainian to the list of languages I'm learning. There are just too many languages that are interesting!

(I did get the Pimsleur Ukranian offer when it was available, though...)

 

It looks like not now, but only technically. At least, Wikipedia uses "presented" in the past tense. The UK government shut down/seized the channels/stations there in March of this year. If he still hosts something online or whatever, I didn't research to find out.

 

I was surprised by the expressed opinions or analysis that contradict what I see and hear from many sources.
I understand the presenting sites are not well regarded but the opinions expressed deeply troubled me.
As the war and suffering in Ukraine.