Last week, US President Donald Trump nominated a retired US army colonel Douglas Macgregor, the 1991 Gulf War hero, as ambassador to Germany. The US Senate still needs to confirm Trump’s choice of Mcgregor.
The White House statement date 27 July 2020 says that the “decorated combat veteran, author, and a consultant”
…is a frequent radio and television commentator on national security affairs and his writings on military affairs have been influential in the transformation of United States ground forces, NATO, and the Israeli Defense Force.
An outspoken critic of operations in the Middle East, the “frequent television commentator” Macgregor argued that the US had no compelling interest in Iraq or Syria, and called Türkiye rather than Iran the real threat. He also considered immigration from Mexico the greatest national security threat to the US and advocated declaring martial law along the US border and “shoot people” if necessary.
Moreover, the would-be Ambassador to Germany has also been an outspoken critic of the current German government led by Angela Merkel.
Anti-Ukrainian position
Back in early May 2014, a month after the beginning of the Russian occupation of Crimea and amid the unfolding Russian aggression in the Donbas, Mr. Mcgregor appeared on the Russian government-affiliated TV channel RT.
In his divisive statement on Ukraine, particularly on the Donbas developments, he echoed several narratives of Russian propaganda as he fully supported the sham Russian-organized “referendums” on Luhansk and Donetsk independence from Ukraine and suggested that some parts of Ukraine would have been rather Russian than Ukrainian.
He stated,
“…We now have a demand for recognition that the people that live in those [East-Ukrainian] areas are in fact Russians, not Ukrainians, and at the same time, you have Ukrainians in the west and in the north, who are not Russians. So, we’ve got to deal with this reality but we need to ask the people on the ground how they want us to do this”
In the RT show, Mr. Mcgregor clearly supported Russia’s plans to divide Ukraine, suggesting that
The [referendum] question should be, “Do you if you are living in eastern Ukraine want to join Russia?” which appears to be the popular sentiment if so they should be allowed to join Russia.
The Donetsk and Luhansk sham “referendums” were not just illegal under Ukrainian legislature but also had nothing in common with a real vote since no independent international monitors were not present at polling stations, the voting was secured by armed Russia-backed fighters, and there was no actual vote counting since the results were predefined and known a week before the event itself, and the ballots were printed on regular office black and white printers.
It was rather a Russian political show to legitimize subsequent full-scale military invasion in the region.
The future US Ambassador to Germany also suggested at the RT 2014 show that Ukraine should withdraw its troops from the east of the country and “wait for this referendum and them live with the outcome.”
Moreover, he addressed the critics of the Russian actions saying,
“Everybody should shut up, they probably should have a vodka and relax, let the referendum go through, and let the Ukrainians then talk directly to the Russians,” was Mcgregor’s remark in the 2014 TV comment.
In his TV appearance in the Russian propaganda channel, he also called the policy of not joining NATO a “good model” for Ukraine. And that’s also exactly what Russia wants from Ukraine for years.
Read more:
- Three years after sham referendums in Donbas, no Russian Spring
- Donetsk separatist referendum organizer: “Return to Ukraine is inevitable, Donbas is Ukraine”
- Stages of Russian occupation in a nutshell
- Russia orchestrating Donetsk “referendum”
- Donetsk workers forced to sign “referendum” petitions
- Separatists: Donetsk Oblast Status the Same Post-Referendum
- Turchynov: 24% Residents Of Luhansk Oblast and 32% of Donetsk Oblast Voted in So-Called ‘Referendum’
- ‘Referendums’ turnout: 10% of voters
