Article

2022-06-22 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Col Douglas Macgregor - Ukraine Russia War Update 21.06.2022 (video)

[YouTube] From a Palmerston post yesterday.

Posted by Besoeker 2022-06-22 05:03|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ] Top

#1 "No one wants to admit failure, because they know once they admit failure, they lose all credibility."

An accurate comment.

Posted by Besoeker 2022-06-22 05:16|| 2022-06-22 05:16|| Front Page Top

#2 The counter-argument:

Insider - A former US general compared Russia's war in Ukraine to a 'heavyweight boxing match' and said a 'knockout blow' is coming

Posted by Besoeker 2022-06-22 06:07|| 2022-06-22 06:07|| Front Page Top

#3 I submit all predictions are just guesses, and the one person who can end the war is the one who started it -- Putin.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2022-06-22 06:59|| 2022-06-22 06:59|| Front Page Top

#4 Col. Doug MacGregor's interview on 16 June with Germany's Die Weltwoche - this English translation was posted to FreeRepublic yesterday:

«This war has been lost a long time ago»

Before critics denounced him as “the voice of Vladimir Putin,” US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor was known for his daring military exploits. During the first Gulf War, his squadron famously demolished nearly seventy Iraqi Republican Guard vehicles in 23 minutes. Now, the West Point graduate is battling the diplomatic establishment over Russia and its war against Ukraine.

Urs Gehriger
16.06.2022

Retired United States Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor does not suffer fools. In the West’s efforts to assist the Ukrainians in repelling Russia’s invasion, he sees a motley crew. Once regarded a war hero, the Gulf War veteran is now denounced as a “Putin apologist” for his uncompromising criticism of what he regards as the West’s duplicity toward the old Cold War foe.

The 69-year-old strategist tells Die Weltwoche, “At this point, the notion that the Russians would negotiate with anybody about events in Ukraine is simply unrealistic.” More ominously for the Ukrainians, Macgregor believes their fight for territorial integrity is already lost. He dismisses glowing reports of Ukrainian tactical victories as a politically concocted “fiction.”

This is not the first time the battle hardened warrior has crossed swords with the foreign policy and military establishment. As an active duty officer, he took the extraordinary step of publishing a radical critique of the U.S. Army’s military readiness with his book, “Breaking the Phalanx.” Praised by the then-head of the Army, General Dennis Reiner, and later by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Macgregor’s public criticism was, nevertheless, viewed by many top brass as a shot across the bow. U.S. News and World Report observed, “The Army is showing it prefers generals who are good at bureaucratic gamesmanship to ones who can think innovatively on the battlefield.”

Years after serving as one of the top planners for NATO’s successful 1999 aerial bombing campaign of Kosovo to expel Yugoslavian forces, Macgregor found himself, once again, crosswise with official Washington. Appearing on Russian state television RT in 2014, the American colonel advocated for a plebiscite in Ukraine to allow Russians in Eastern Ukraine to decide whether their future was in Ukraine or Russia....

Everything Col. MacGregor said then and more recently has been justified and reasonable. It is disgusting to hear him being smeared with lies ("Putin apologist") by people who do not have one-tenth as much courage, brainpower and integrity as Col. MacGregor.

Posted by Lonzo Squank8162 2022-06-22 09:21|| 2022-06-22 09:21|| Front Page Top

#5 Weltwoche: Colonel Macgregor, could the American missile systems that President Joe Biden wants to deliver become a game changer in the war?

Doug Macgregor: No. These weapons are not going to have any significant impact whatsoever. First of all, this “High Mobility Artillery Rocket System” is a good system, but we are sending only four launchers. This is about as significant as sending four tanks. You don't have a significant impact with so few launchers. Keep something else in mind. It takes, on average, at least five weeks to train crew members on the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. Unless we are sending American soldiers to operate these systems, it seems very unlikely to me that these systems are going to be placed into operation quickly and have any real utility at all.

Secondly, the 50-mile range is the outer limit of the system. I doubt that they would get any rockets close to the Russian border.

Then, finally, when the High Mobility Rocket System fires, it is visible from low Earth-orbiting satellites. That means, as soon as you fire a salvo of these rockets, the first thing that you absolutely must do is rapidly move to a new location. If you don't, you're going to be identified and destroyed by counter-battery fire.

If we've learned one thing from this current war, the Russians have excellent counter-battery fire capability. They have the radars, they have the links to the intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance assets in space, as well as overhead in the terrestrial environment.

The bottom line is these four launchers are going to make absolutely no difference at all. It looks like a face-saving venture by the U.S. government to create the illusion that we've done something important for Ukrainians when, in fact, we haven't.

Weltwoche: In reaction to the announced deployment of US rocket systems, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman, Dmitri Medvedev, said that "if, God forbid, these weapons are used against Russian territory, then our armed forces will have no other choice but to strike decision-making centers.” If the four launchers are going to make absolutely no difference on the battlefield, as you point out, then the Russians can easily relax, can’t they?

Macgregor: The Russians are simply reinforcing something that they actually made clear from the very beginning of this operation. If we begin to operate from neighboring NATO states and directly attacking Russian forces in Ukraine, they will view those neighboring states as co-belligerents. Right now, the state that is the assembly area for the distribution and projection of new equipment and assistance into Ukraine is Poland. It is not unreasonable for the Russians to say, “If these things come in from Poland and they actually hit Russia, we will strike Poland.”

Now, my point is that I think the people in Washington are acutely sensitive to this, more so than people think in Europe As a result, it may have started out as a much larger infusion of rocket systems. I think that they suddenly scaled back..

Posted by Lonzo Squank8162 2022-06-22 09:38|| 2022-06-22 09:38|| Front Page Top

#6 @Besoeker: thank you for posting.

Also, kudos to Lonzo for finding the transcript of Col. Doug MacGregor's interview with Die Weltwoche.

There's not yet a transcript of yesterday's Fox News interview with MacGregor but here are some choice bits:

1:19
"The question is an easy one to answer: Ukraine has lost this war. I would argue, Ukraine lost it some time ago. It's now becoming apparent -- even to Ukraine's most ardent supporters in London, Berlin, Paris and Washington can't really stand up and say anything else.
I suppose some of them will try [to deny that Ukraine has lost] the truth is, the war is over. It was over a long time ago. The Ukrainians are losing, on a daily basis, 500 to 1000 dead and wounded... their army is being annihilated.

"The Ukrainian Army is reduced to relying on reservists -- what we would call the National Guard -- and throwing them into the buzzsaw. And the Russians are calmly, methodically annihilating whatever shows up. The Russians are consolidating control over 25 to 30 percent of Ukraine, where the Ukrainians were previously [in control]..."

Posted by Palmerston 2022-06-22 11:10|| 2022-06-22 11:10|| Front Page Top

#7 I do agree backing Ukraine is a failed policy. It's worth noting that politicians, and not just the ones in Washington, have only one response to a failed policy: Double down.

Posted by M. Murcek 2022-06-22 11:25|| 2022-06-22 11:25|| Front Page Top

#8 MacGregor says the war is over but I don't believe it. People are still dying, Zelensky remains defiant and the longer that continues the more Biden and his handlers are liable to do something really stupid. Putin needs to wrap it up.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2022-06-22 17:43|| 2022-06-22 17:43|| Front Page Top

#9 Lysychansk is surrounded now. The Russians are taking their time, ensuring that the choice those few thousand poor Ukrainian civilians-in-uniforms face is surrender or death.

The New York Times and the other US / UK propaganda sheets have stopped pretending that Ukraine is not on the brink of losing the entire Donbas.

Time to face reality....as Doug MacGregor says, The Russians are in total control of the tempo and are "calmly, methodically annihilating whoever comes up".

Russia Breaks Through Front Line; Ukrainian Troops Brace For Onslaught

Posted by Palmerston 2022-06-22 18:55|| 2022-06-22 18:55|| Front Page Top

#10 as Doug MacGregor says, The Russians are in total control of the tempo and are "calmly, methodically annihilating whoever comes up"

Dragging out the poor Ukrainians' slaughter like this is obscene. For what realistic goal? They're not going to "win" anything. They've lost almost a third of the country and nearly all their GDP...

Ukraine's a failed state now. There's nothing left to fight for. It's just a meat grinder.... What are they fighting for at this point - Blinken and Sullivan's vision of LGBTQWERTY+ rights?
For the greater glory of the Biden Crime Family?

Biden Rice Blinken and Sullivan are sick fucks. I'm with MacGregor: we need to get these maniacs out of the White House asap

Posted by Oye Como Va 2022-06-22 19:11|| 2022-06-22 19:11|| Front Page Top

#11 Russia Breaks Through Front Line; Ukrainian Troops Brace For Onslaught

I've always thought fighting for every foot of land a mistake. Let them advance a little and get strung out, the way they did around Kiev and Kharkov. Then cut off the pocket and roll them up. It would be amusing if the Ukrainians managed to replicate the Polish Miracle on the Vistula.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2022-06-22 22:06|| 2022-06-22 22:06|| Front Page Top

#12 The counter-argument:

Insider - A former US general compared Russia's war in Ukraine to a 'heavyweight boxing match' and said a 'knockout blow' is coming

Hertling is a Democrat party animal. Whatever a Democrat administration is doing, he will say only the good things that come to mind about its policies.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2022-06-22 23:53|| 2022-06-22 23:53|| Front Page Top

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