Deeply Interesting Macgregor Interview

Before I lost my connection for virtually the entire day, I did manage to listen to George Galloway and Doug Macgregor. I’ve done a transcript of about the first two thirds of the interview—the remainder deals with Venezuela. Follow the link for the rest.

INTERVIEW: A war is inevitable

GG: I'm very worried indeed about the Persian Gulf. The Russians have evacuated their embassy in Tel Aviv and the Americans have abandoned two of their most vulnerable military bases in Iraq very peremptorily indeed. And Russia kind of knows from both sides what's going on. They have a relationship with Israel and they have a very close relationship now with Iran. They seem to think and the American government seems to think that the balloon might be about to go up there again. Do you think so?

The circumstances, as sketched out by Mac, do strongly suggest that war is in the offing.

I've been expecting something in September, latest October, because the Greater Israel project has no chance of success--and I think Mr. Netanyahu knows this--unless they can ultimately Balkanize and destroy Iran. So the war has to continue. There's no question about that if you're an Israeli. On the other hand, I'm not sure exactly when. I know that a lot of American materiel—Theater High Altitude Air Defense [THAAD] missiles and equipment—are being shipped to Israel. So I know we're busy trying to assist the Israelis with regard to defending themselves. And of course they have limitless ammunition from us and whatever else they need. I know the Russians have been on the ground in Iran trying to repair, restore and ultimately improve their integrated air defenses. So, a war is inevitable. We just don't know exactly when. And these evacuations from Iraq are interesting because I remember when President Trump was president the first time around in 2020, when I was working for him, he was very interested in getting us completely out of Syria and Iraq. And, of course, he was obstructed at that point. So, for this to happen suggests that something is indeed building, but none of us knows when or how it will happen.

Galloway’s next question gets to the heart of the matter about Trump. Does he really want peace or is he just playing us for fools? Or is he being misled? Mac argues, as usual, that Trump is a man of peace who is being misled. I don’t buy it. I think he’s a man who has been bought by the Anglo-Zionists. I will readily grant that Trump is not and never will be a student of geopolitics, but I do think he has a broad knowledge that, for example, genocide is going on in Palestine and that Russia is winning the war in Ukraine. And, in effect, Mac ends up saying, basically, that Trump is weak and unprincipled, like the politicians Trump likes to criticize.

GG: Well, turning then to the war that we know all too much about and that is still raging, it's a commonplace to state that Donald Trump hasn't ended the Ukraine war in 24 hours or 24 weeks. He has doubled down on the war. He has empowered the seven dwarves of the European Union. As long as they buy the weapons from him, Trump's quite happy for the European Union to supply limitless weapons--limited only by questions of industrial capacity--to empty their armories, give everything to Ukraine, and for that weaponry to include the potential to penetrate deep into the Russian heartland. I'm thinking of the new cruise missile allocation which Trump announced which, I think, was 2,000 or 3,000 units will go to Ukraine. They're well capable of penetrating into Russian territory deeply. So what is it? Was Trump lying when he said he wanted to end the war in Ukraine or was he telling the truth but is simply unable to do so? And if it's the latter, why?

I think the second answer that you provide is accurate, and I think that's what he finally concluded after he met in Alaska with President Putin. I don't think President Trump--who is certainly not a student of European history, culture, economics, geography--ever really understood the complexity of the of the issues in Ukraine. I don't think he completely grasped what he was dealing with. Whether or not he does now is open to question, but he certainly did not until he got to Alaska. I think you're raising a very important question. If you're sitting in Moscow and you're looking at events, you're saying, "Well, first of all, we had a good meeting with President Trump and his team." Remember, they met previously in Saudi Arabia and on both occasions, both teams said they'd made some progress in the direction of normalizing relations with Russia. And that's something that President Trump has said he wanted to do. However, having done that, that of course did not address Ukraine. And I think he decided that, I can't fix Ukraine. I can't solve this, which is something he should have understood from the beginning. I think he does understand that. On the other hand, I think he's being advised by people who are telling him, 'Well, you can't just walk away.' And remember, that was what I urged from the beginning, very early on, to President Trump: 'Look, let's leave this, announce all further armaments. We'll send humanitarian assistance to the Ukrainians, but the best way to end this war is to stop the flow of cash and weapons to Ukraine.' At that point, the war has to stop because the Ukrainians really are at the end of their tether as it is. The Russians will then begin to take us seriously. I think he's been urged by everybody on the Hill and elsewhere not to do that. In other words, he's turned out to be like too many politicians, George. He wants to be a little bit pregnant. So, he's straddling the proverbial fence.

In this next paragraph Mac illustrates Trump’s poor judgment. Just as Trump made a major war in the Middle East well nigh inevitable by his ill judged sneak attack on Iran, the wild gyrations of his Russia policy are leading Russia to escalate and destroy what remains of Ukraine. I haven’t seen this elsewhere, but I’m fascinated by Mac’s claim that Russian special ops troops are already operating in the Odessa region. It makes sense, because there have been rumors of such units operating west of the Dnieper. Further, the Russians have paid special attention to destroying all military infrastructure in Odessa. Like Mac, many here have also believed that the capture of Odessa was highly likely. But Trump’s ill judged decisions are probably making that inevitable.

Now, this latest announcement [regarding cruise missiles to Ukraine] is horrific. The notion that we would send thousands of cruise missiles over there is insane to begin with. Secondly, it's not going to happen very quickly because we can't build that many in the time that remains for Ukraine. So, I think the Russians are looking at this and saying, "We don't have any choice anymore. We've got to end this war. So, we're going to press ahead." Now, what does press ahead mean? Well, they've already got special operations forces on the outskirts of Odessa. They've already destroyed all potential military targets in and around Odessa. They're going to move towards Zaporozhye. They're going to get complete control of Kherson, all of the areas in southern Ukraine. There's no choice on that matter. And eventually, I think we'll see them occupy Odessa. I've always felt that way. They've said that for the last three years. And you'll remember that Russians were herded into buildings in Odessa and then burned alive by the Ukrainians down there. That's something the Russians have never forgotten and I would not forget that either. So, I think those things are on the table. The question is, do you cross the river in strength and go north to Kiev? In other words, eliminate the cancer because they don't want to refight this war in the future. And now it seems that MI6 in London is very interested in pushing this man Zaluzhny, who is ostensibly their puppet. That's not going to fly with Moscow. They will not accept that under any circumstances. And then finally, at least President Trump has now said, as I understand it, there will be no US forces on the ground in Ukraine.

Next, Mac makes a very important point, which is: Trump’s summit on Ukraine at the WH was another example of poor judgment. Excluded from the summit were the very nations who are most directly affected by the war. That surely sends a message to them about how the Anglo-Zionists regard them.

Now, we've had this confusion over the last several days. Well, we may do this, we may not. I'm hearing he says 'No'. The president of Poland, who is very much an important actor in all of this, has said 'no Polish troops on the ground in Ukraine.' And as I've said from the very beginning, you didn't have Poland at this summit in the White House. Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania--they border Ukraine. They are key to the outcome. They've been treated as though they're second class citizens, irrelevant. They have to be on board for whatever happens in Ukraine. So, I think that summit in the White House was a serious mistake. You called them the seven dwarves. The people that came in there were a disaster because they have nothing at stake. What they say is irresponsible. Starmer talking about, what, 30,000 British troops? Good luck. The British army, as you and I both know, is a shadow of its former self. It's in bad shape. It's really tragic. The same thing is true in France. As a friend of mine in the French army says, 'the only thing we're prepared to do is go on safari in Africa.' So, there's 60,000 troops. And then I listened to a British analyst who came on and--I've forgotten his name--explained that you would have to have at least 300,000 troops that would operate effectively along the border of Ukraine to guarantee anything. And then finally, the Russians have said, "If you move any troops in there from Western Europe, that's a red line for us. You make yourselves a co-elligerent, we'll attack you." So where are we?

Next Mac hammers home the major point he’s been making for years, which is that the Anglo-Zionists foolish war on Russia will destroy NATO and the EU.

I think we're where we thought we would always be for months. And and every time I've talked to you, this has come up really. Who is going to determine the outcome? Russia. It be determined on the ground in Ukraine? End of discussion. And in the meantime, NATO is falling apart. Anybody who thinks that NATO is robust and capable is crazy. The same thing is true for the EU. If you live in Hungary and Slovakia and Poland, you're being told you need to accept a million people from Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia. These people have said, "No, thank you. We're not interested in that. We see what's happened in Great Britain. We've seen what's happened in Germany and Italy and France. We don't want that here. Everything is falling apart in the West. Nothing is working. So in the final analysis, Russia is winning this war and Russia will determine the outcome. We won't.

GG: Now, the Ukrainian authorities themselves we learned from leaked documents this week indicate that they have lost 1.7 million men. These are first world war levels of casualty. That's not just killed in action. It's also missing in action. But a very significant number of those are almost certainly dead and being concealed as being dead because it saves Zelensky paying out death benefit to their widows and families. 1.7 million Ukrainians missing in action or killed in action plus a quarter of a million deserters plus 9 million Ukrainians living outside in our countries at our expense and not very well received, frankly, in most polite society. I saw some of them in Canada, I think it was, complaining about the miserly $2,000 a month that they were being given by the Canadian taxpayer. They are going to remain in those countries. Ukraine is effectively a failed state now, isn't it?

I think the nation of Ukraine, if we want to call it that, is in ruins thanks to this man Zelensky and his backers in Washington and London primarily. Now, if you if you look at Poland right now, the Polish president, in addition to saying, "We're not going to send any more troops to Ukraine"--the Poles sent several thousand troops over there. They lost at least 2,000 killed trying to help the Ukrainians--they've said no more. Out of the question. They've got several million Ukrainians in in Poland. One out of five of them is applying for citizenship in Poland. So, the Poles are now struggling with this because Poland is not that large a country. They've already got 40 plus million. They would like most of these Ukrainians to go home. And you're right, in Austria where they have a lot of them, people are on the streets saying "stop importing, start deporting." Now, they're not just talking about unwanted Ukrainians. They're talking about large numbers of people from overseas that are non-Europeans.

But your point is absolutely valid. This is a disaster. Now, I said a couple of weeks ago when I was asked 1.8 million had been killed and I was viciously attacked. Now they're saying 1.7. It's actually over 1.7. My sources are Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian. And what they try to do is the following. They try to read all the obituaries, actually visit the cemeteries, visit the hospitals, and more important, some of them have had the opportunity, through commercial satellite coverage, to find the mass graves. You were talking about people being killed and not reported. There are mass graves in eastern Ukraine of Ukrainian soldiers. Literally thousands in these graves essentially bulldozed into the dirt and forgotten because the regime doesn't want to do what you described. And remember, you have so much corruption inside this military. If you want to be evacuated from the battlefield, you have to pay somebody in an ambulance to drive you to a hospital. What kind of an evacuation system is that for a military establishment?

Ukraine is destroyed. It's finished. If President Trump really understood any of this, he would do what I said to begin with. Simply suspend the aid, say, "This regime is not legitimate. It's over." But he refuses to do that. You know, we have a similar situation, as you're well aware, in the Middle East. I think if President Trump really understood the reality on the ground in Gaza, he would stop supplying the Israelis. But he can't do that. He refuses to do that. We are prisoners of all sorts of forces right now in the United States, none of which are in our interest. Some of these are big donors. Some of these are political, industrial, but they're all bad. So the only conclusion I think most Americans can reach is we're not represented in Washington. Our government is divorced from us. I think you and many of your fellow citizens are reaching a similar conclusion.

Again, I disagree with the idea that Trump doesn’t knwo what the reality in Gaza is. We’ve seen repeated leak stories of Trump shouting at Netanyahu about how bad all this is for Trump’s political support among many of the people who voted for him. Is he effectively a hostage? Yeah, but that doesn’t make me feel sorry for him. He brought that on himself—and on America.