Well, I don’t agree with much that Colonel Douglas MacGregor has to say about domestic politics and culture and how it is all related to our screwed-up foreign policy.

BUT … but … I do agree with almost everything he says about the war in Ukraine, even though it is consistently at odds with almost everything we are hearing from the mainstream media. This is, after all, a subject on which he is an expert. Not to mention the fact that his views on the causes of the Ukraine war align perfectly with the views of scholars such as Stephen Cohen and John Mearsheimer, and diplomats such as Jack Matlock and Henry Kissinger.

Should we listen only to people who share our politics? That doesn’t work. I’m in the uncomfortable position of being a lifelong Democrat whose party is currently in control of an administration in Washington whose foreign policies, it seems to me, are putting our national interest more gravely at risk than anytime since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In the interesting interview below, MacGregor points out that if we hadn’t “weaponized” the poor Ukrainians for the purpose of hurting Russia, the Ukraine war wouldn’t be happening right now

He also reminds us that Russia is an “Orthodox Christian state that sits on the foundation of Russian Orthodox Christian culture … this is not the Soviet Union. It does not embrace an ideology of relentless expansion. There is no revolutionary current in the Russian mindset today. Russia simply wants to survive and and do business with its neighbors.” In other words, Russia is no real threat to us.

He has some interesting observations on Taiwan as well, pointing out that most Taiwanese probably prefer a peaceful integration with China, rather than the Ukraine-like struggle that the US is promoting.

Why are the experienced soldiers in our society, like MacGregor and, say, Eisenhower, always the most passionate advocates of diplomacy and peaceful alternatives to war?

I’m guessing it’s because they know first-hand what Hell war really is. (See also my essay, “In Praise of Warriors, Not War“).