Speaker 1 (00:00:00):
Hi, this is, uh, this is Mike Billington, um, with the executive intelligence review and the Scher Institute. I am here today with Colonel Richard Black, Senator Richard Black, uh, who, uh, after serving 31 years in the Marines and in the army, uh, then served in the Virginia House of delegates from 1998 to 2006. And in the Virginia Senate from 2012 to 2020 I'll I'll Allo allow Colonel black to describe his, his, uh, military service himself. Um, so Colonel black welcome with the, with the us and UK and NATO surrogate war with Russia, which is taking place in Ukraine and the economic warfare being carried out directly against Russia. This has been accompanied by an information war, which is intended to demonize Russia and especially president LaMer Putin. One repeated theme is that the Russian military is carrying out ruthless campaigns of murder against civilians and destruction of residential areas.

Speaker 1 (00:01:13):
Often referring to the Russian military operations in Syria claiming that, uh, they had done the same thing in Syria special against the Lepo. Uh, these are supposedly examples of their war crimes and crimes against humanity. You have been a, a, a leading spokesman internationally for many years, exposing the lies about what took place in, in Syria and the war on Syria. So first let me ask, how did, uh, how and why did Russia get involved in Syria militarily and, and how does that contrast with the us and NATO, uh, suppose justification for their military intervention in Syria?

Speaker 2 (00:01:59):
Well, let, let me begin if I could, by, uh, telling our listeners that, uh, you know, I I'm very patriotic. Um, I, I volunteered to join the Marines and, and, uh, uh, I volunteered to go to Vietnam. Uh, I fought in, in the bloodiest Marine campaign of the entire war, um, and, uh, I, I was a helicopter pilot through flew 269 combat missions. My aircraft was hit by ground fire on Ford missions. Uh, I then fought on the ground with the first Marine division and, uh, during one of the 70 patrols combat patrols that I may, uh, my radio men were both killed and I was wounded while we were attacking and trying to rescue a surrounded Marine outpost. Um, so, uh, I I'm very pro-American. I actually was a part of NATO and was prepared to, to die in Germany, uh, to, to defend against an attack by the Soviet union.

Speaker 2 (00:03:12):
But, um, but I, uh, I do not feel, you know, Russia is not the at union at all. Uh, people don't understand that because the media has not made it clear, but, uh, Russia is not a communist state. Uh, Soviet union was a communist state. Now, one of the things that I've seen claimed that has, has been to me because of my experience with Syria, you know, I have, I have been in Aleppo city, Aleppo city is the, the biggest city in, uh, in Syria, or it was at least before the war began. Um, and there was a tremendous by battles, some, some call it the Stalin grad of, of the Syrian war, which is not a bad comparison. Uh, it was a, it was a, a terribly, uh, bitter battle that went on from 2012, until 2016. Um, in the course of, of urban combat, uh, any, any forces that are fighting are forced to destroy buildings, buildings are blown down on a massive scale.

Speaker 2 (00:04:33):
Uh, and this happens anytime that you have urban combat. Um, so, uh, I, I have walked the streets of Aleppo, uh, while combat was still in progress. Uh, I have looked across, uh, through, through a, a slit in the sandbags at, uh, enemy controlled territory I've stood on, on tan S that were blown out and, and this type of thing. Um, what I do know, and I can tell you about Aleppo is that, uh, Russia, Russia was extremely reluctant to get involved in combat in Syria. Uh, the war began in 2011 when the United States landed, uh, central intelligence operatives to begin coordinating with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. And, uh, we had been unwavering supporters of Al-Qaeda since before the war for normally began. Uh, we are supporters of Al-Qaeda today where they're bottled up in idli province. Um, the CIA supplied them under secret operation timber Sycamore.

Speaker 2 (00:05:59):
We gave them all of their anti tank weapons, all of their anti-air missiles. And, uh, uh, Al-Qaeda has always been our proxy, uh, force on the ground. They together with ISIS have carried out the mission of the United States together with a, a great number of affiliates that really are kind of interchange. You have the free Syrian army soldiers move from ISIS to Al-Qaeda to free Syrian army, rather fluidly. And, um, so we, we that war, but, but the United States has a strategic policy of using proxies to engage in war. And our objective was overthrow the legitimate government of Syria. And in order to do that, we employed, uh, proxy soldiers who were the, the most vile of all terrorists. Um, something very similar is happening right now in, uh, in Ukraine, uh, but going back to Aleppo the, the Syrian army to together with, uh, with Helo, which was very effective, there were some, some troops that were organized by Iran also, but it was pretty much, uh, a Syrian show, uh, certainly directed by Syrian generals.

Speaker 2 (00:07:36):
And, uh, they had fought this bitter urban combat, very brutal, very deadly, uh, and they had fought it for four years before Russia ever joined the battle. So after four years, the city of Aleppo had enormous destruction. And, uh, at that point, the, uh, the Russians at the invitation of, of the legitimate government of Syria entered the war. Um, but unlike, uh, unlike many of the, the media reports, they did not, uh, enter the war as a ground force. They had some small ground forces. They had military police, uh, they had a few artillery units, a few special operations people, uh, and they had quite a number of advisors and that sort of thing. Um, but they were not a, a significant ground force. On the other hand, they were a significant and very effective air force, uh, that supplemented the, the Syrian air force.

Speaker 2 (00:08:51):
Um, but, uh, it really was just the last year of the war, the, the battle of, for Aleppo just the last year that they entered and their air power was, was very effective. And, uh, by this time the Syrians had pretty well worn down the, uh, uh, the, uh, the terrorist forces and, uh, the, the Russian assistance was able to tip the tip the balance. And, uh, EPPO was the grand victory of the entire Syrian war, but to blame the, the Russians for the, the massive destruction that took place within Lepo, it's bizarre because they, they were not there. They were not even present when this happened. So, uh, the, the, this is another part of the propaganda narrative, which is, uh, which has been very effective for the west demonizing Russia and making claims that have no substance, but people don't remember the history of these things they're rather complex. So no, uh, Russia was not in any respect responsible for the, uh, massive destruction of the city of <inaudible>.

Speaker 1 (00:10:24):
How would you, uh, contrast the methods of warfare followed by Russia as opposed to the us and allied forces in Syria?

Speaker 2 (00:10:36):
Well, first of all, the, the American involvement, the United States war against Syria is the war of aggression. Um, we, we put the, uh, central intelligence, it's a highly secretive CIA special activity center. These are kind of the James Bond guys of the central intelligence agency, total Macia Bellion. They will do anything. They have, there's no, it's no holds barred with these guys. We sent them in and we started the war in Syria. The war didn't exist until we sent the CIA to coordinate with Al-Qaeda elements. So we began the war and, uh, we were not invited into Syria. Uh, in fact, the, the United States has seized two significant parts of Syria. One is a very major part, the, uh, uh, the Euphrates river, uh, BI or doesn't BI, it, it, it carves off about a third of the Northern part of, of Syria. The United States invaded that portion.

Speaker 2 (00:11:58):
We actually put troops on the ground, uh, illegal against any standard international law of war. Uh, it was, it was a, uh, just a seizure. And this, this was something that was referred to by John Kerry, who was then the secretary of state. And he, he, he was frustrated at the tremendous victory by the Syrian armed forces against Al-Qaeda and ISIS. And he said, well, we, he probably need to move to plan B. He didn't announce what plan B was, but it had it unfolded over time. Plan B was the American seizure of that Northern portion of Syria. The importance of, of taking that to Syria is that it is the bread basket for all of the Syrian people. That is where the wheat, uh, Syria actually had a significant wheat surplus. And the people were very well fed in Syria before the war. We wanted to take the wheat a way to cause famine among the Syrian people.

Speaker 2 (00:13:20):
The other thing we were able to do is to seize the major part of the, the oil and natural gas fields. Those also were produced in that Northern portion, beyond the Euphrates river. And, and the idea was that by stealing the oil and the, and the gas, we would be able to shut down the transportation system. And at the same time, during the Syrian winters, we could freeze to death, the Syrian civilian population, which in many cases were living in, in rubble where, where the, these terrorist armies with mechanized divisions had attacked and just totally destroyed these, these cities and left people, just living in little pockets of rubble. Uh, we, we wanted to starve and we wanted to freeze to death, the people of Syria. And that was plan B. Now we became frustrated at a certain point that somehow these Syrians, these darn Syrians, it's a tiny little country.

Speaker 2 (00:14:39):
And why are these people resilient? They're fighting against two thirds of the entire military and industrial force of the world. How can a, can a nation of 23 million people possibly withstand this for over a decade? And so we decided we had to take action, or we were gonna totally lose Syria. And so the us Congress imposed the Caesar sanctions. The Caesar sanctions were the most brutal sanctions ever imposed on ever any nation. I mean, during second world war sanctions were not nearly as strict as they were on Syria. We weren't war with Syria. And yet we were in, we had a, we had a Naval blockade, uh, around the, the country.

Speaker 2 (00:15:41):
We devalued their currency through the swift system for international payments, making it impossible for them to purchase medication. So you had Syrian women who would contract breast cancer, just like we have here in this country. But instead of here in this country where breast cancer has become relatively treatable, we cut off the medical supply so that the women in Syria would die of breast cancer because they could not get the medications because we slammed their, their, uh, their, uh, dollars through the swift system. The, one of the last things that we did and, and the evidence that is, is vague on it, but there was a mysterious explosion in the Harbor of, uh, of, in, in Lebanon. And, uh, it was a massive explosion of a, of a shipload of, of, uh, ammonium nitrate fertilizer. It killed hundreds of, of Lebanese people. It, uh, it wounded thousands and thousands destroyed the economy of Lebanon.

Speaker 2 (00:17:05):
And most importantly, it destroyed the banking system of Lebanon, which was one of the few lifelines to Syria. I don't think that explosion was accidental. I think it was orchestrated. And I suspect that the central intelligence agency was aware of the nation that carried out that, that action to destroy Beirut Harbor. But throughout you see this, this Machiavellian approach where we use unlimited force and violence, and at the same time, we control the, the global media to where we erase all discussions of what's truly happening. So to the, to the, the man, the woman in the street, they think things are fine. Everything is, is being done for altruistic reasons, but it's not

Speaker 1 (00:18:15):
Part of your military service was, uh, as the, uh, a JAG officer. And, uh, for a period of time, you were the armies criminal, uh, head of the criminal law division at the Pentagon. And in that light, uh, what do you see as the, um, of how these Caesar sanctions, uh, how would you look at those under, from the perspective of international law and military law?

Speaker 2 (00:18:48):
Well, now, uh, I was not the international law expert. I, I was the criminal law expert, but, uh, I, I would say that, uh, making war on a civilian population is a crime of, of grave significance in, in the law of war. Um, <affirmative> one of the things that we did as we, as we allied ourselves with Al-Qaeda and on and off with ISIS, I mean, we fought ISIS in, in a very serious way, but at the same time, we often employed them to use against the Syrian government. So it's kind of a love hate, but we have always worked with the, with the terrorists. They were the, they were the core. One of the policies that was followed, uh, was that, uh, under this extreme version of Islam, this Hab, uh, there was this notion that you possess a woman that you seize with your strong right arm and battle.

Speaker 2 (00:20:03):
Uh, and this goes back to the seventh century. And, uh, so we facilitated the movement of, of Islamic terrorists from a hundred countries. And they came and they joined ISIS, they joined Al-Qaeda, they joined the free Syrian army, all of these different ones. And one of the things that they knew when they arrived is that they were lawfully entitled to murder the husbands. I'm not talking about military people, I'm talking about civilian. They could murder the husbands, they could kill them, and then they could possess and own their wives and their children. And they did it in vast numbers. And so there was a, there was a campaign of rape. It was an organized campaign of rape across the nation of Syria. And, uh, there, there actually were slave markets that, that arose in certain of these, uh, rebel areas where they, they actually had price lists of, of the different women.

Speaker 2 (00:21:19):
And interestingly, the highest prices went to the youngest children because there were a great number of pedophiles. And the pedophiles wanted to possess small children because under the laws that were applied, they were permitted to rape these children repeatedly. They were able to rape the widows of the SL soldiers or the SL civilian and, uh, and possess them and buy 'em and sell them among themselves. This went on, I'm not saying that the CIA created this policy, but they understood that it was a widespread policy and they condoned it. They, they never criticized it in any way. Um, this was so bad that I spoke with the president Asad, who shared with me that they were in the process. When I visited in 2016, I was, I was in a number of battle zones and in the capital, and I met with the president and he said that at that time they were working on legislation in the parliament to change the law of citizenship.

Speaker 2 (00:22:40):
Uh, they had always followed the Islamic law, which was that, that a child citizenship derived from the father, but there were so many tens, hundreds of thousands of Syrian women impregnated by these terrorists who were imported into Syria, that it was necessary to change the law so that they would have Syrian citizenship and they wouldn't have to be returned to their ISIS father in Saudi Arabia or in tun. They could be retained in, in Syria. And I checked later and that law was passed and was implemented. Uh, but it just shows that the utter cruelty it when we fight these wars, we have no limits on the, the cruelty and the, in inhumanity that we're prepared to impose on the people, making them suffer. So that somehow that will translate into overthrowing the government and, uh, perhaps taking, taking their oil, taking their, their resources,

Speaker 1 (00:23:56):
Clearly the policy against Russia today by the current administration.

Speaker 2 (00:24:02):
Yes, yes. You know, it, Russia, Russia is perhaps more, uh, more blessed with natural resources than any other nation on earth. Um, they are a major producer of grain, of oil, of aluminum, uh, of, of, uh, fertilizers of, of, of an immense number of things that tie into the, the whole global economy. And, uh, no doubt. There are people who, uh, look at this and say, you know, if we could somehow break up <affirmative> Russia itself, there will be fortunes made to where trillionaires will be made by the dozens. And, uh, uh, there there's some attraction to that. Certainly you've seen some of this taking place already, uh, with foreign interests, taking over Ukraine and taking their vast resources. But, uh, we, we have, we have, we began a drive towards Russia almost immediately after the Soviet union dissolved in 1991, the Soviet union dissolved the Warsaw pact dissolved.

Speaker 2 (00:25:36):
And unfortunately, one of the, one of the great tragedies of history is that we failed to dissolve NATO. The sole purpose of NATO was to defend against the Soviet union, the Soviet union no longer existed. We, the NATO went toe to toe with the Warsaw packed. The Warsaw pact was gone. It no longer existed. There was no purpose in NATO continuing to exist. However, we retained it and it could not exist unless it had an enemy. Russia was desperate to become part of the west. Uh, they, I met with the head of gas prom, uh, the, the largest corporation in, uh, uh, in, in Russia. And this was shortly after the, the demise of the Soviet union. And he described for me how they were struggling to, to have their media be as free as it was in the west. And they, they perceived us as being much more free enough and than we were.

Speaker 2 (00:26:53):
And he said, you know, we've got this problem because we have this uprising in Chenia, which is part of Russia. And he said, um, uh, the, the Chesney and rebels send videos to Russian television and we play 'em on Russian television because that's the way freedom of speech works. And I said, are you kidding me? I said, you're, you're publishing the enemy propaganda film. He said, yeah. He said, isn't that the way you do it in the United States? I said, no. I said, in the, in the second world war, we took the head of the associated press. And we put him in charge of war time, censorship, and it was very strict. Um, so, but this is just an example of how they were struggling. They went from being an officially atheist country to where they became the most Christianized major nation in Europe by far, not only were the people, the most Christianized people, uh, in any major country tree in Europe, but the government itself was very supportive of the church of, of the Christian faith.

Speaker 2 (00:28:16):
They, uh, uh, they altered their constitution to say that marriage was the union of man one man in one and woman, they became very restrictive on the practice of abortion. Um, they ended the practice of, of, uh, overseas adoptions, uh, where some people were, were going to Russia and adopting little boys for imoral purposes is so, uh, so they became a, a totally different culture. And, uh, uh, in any event the United States has, has we have this longstanding, uh, strategy, a, this political military strategy of expanding the empire. We did it in the middle east where we attempted to create a massive neo-colonial empire. Uh it's. It became rather afraid the people did not want it. And, uh, uh, it, it, it seems to be, uh, doomed to extinction sometime, but it may go on for another a hundred years. Um, but in any event, we are trying to do something similar as we roll to the east, right up virtually to the, to the Ukrainian border or to, to the Russian border, rather.

Speaker 1 (00:29:56):
So, um, the, uh, the us and UK position on the war in Ukraine, uh, just over these last few weeks has, has now become not only supporting the war, but, uh, victory at all costs. This has been declared by defense secretary, Austin and others, and they are pumping in huge quantities of not only defensive, but offensive me weaponry, uh, to the Kia regime. Um, what do you, what do you see as the consequence of this policy?

Speaker 2 (00:30:34):
I think, I think one thing that it will do, uh, is it will ensure that a tremendous number of innocent you ukranian soldiers will die. Needlessly. A lot of Russian soldiers will die. Needlessly. These are kids, you know, kids, kids go off to war. I went off to war as a kid. You think your country right or wrong, everything they're doing is fine. Uh, I, I, it just, it breaks my heart. When I look at the, the faces of, of young Russian boys who have been, who have been gunned down, uh, in some cases, very criminally by Ukrainian forces. And likewise, I see Ukrainian, uh, young men who, who are being slaughtered on the battlefield. We don't care the United States and NATO. We do not care. How many Ukrainians die? Not civilians, not women, not children, not soldiers. We do not care. We are, it's, it's, it's become great football game.

Speaker 2 (00:31:50):
Uh, you know, we've got our team, they've got our team, rah, we want to get the biggest score and run it up. And, uh, you know, we don't care how many, how many of our players get, uh, get, uh, crippled on the, on the playing field. Uh, as long as we win now, we are shipping fantastic quantities of weapons. Um, and, uh, it's re it's it's, uh, caused the stock of Raytheon, which creates missiles and Northrop Grumman, which creates aircraft and so forth and missiles. Uh, all of these defense industry three have become tremendously bloated with, with, uh, tax dollars.

Speaker 2 (00:32:38):
I don't think it's ultimately going to change the outcome. I think that, uh, I think that Russia will prevail. Uh, the Ukrainians are in a very awkward strategic position, uh, in the east. Um, but, uh, if you, if you look it the way that this unfolded president Putin made a desperate effort to, to stop the March towards war back in, in December of 2021, he went so far as to put specific written proposals on the table with NATO peace proposals to, to defuse what was coming about, because at this point, Ukraine was massing troops to attack the Don bass. Uh, and, uh, so he was trying to head this all off. He didn't want war and, uh, NATO just blew it off, just dismissed it, uh, never took it seriously, never went into serious negotiations at that point, Putin seeing that, uh, that armed Ukrainians, uh, with weapons to kill Russian troops were literally on their borders, decided he had to strike first.

Speaker 2 (00:34:09):
Now you could see that this was not, this was not some pre-planned attack. This was not like, uh, like Hitler's attack into Poland where the, the, the standard rule of thumb is that you always have a three to one advantage when you are the attacker, you have to mass three times as many tanks and, and artillery and planes and men as the other side has in fact, when Russia went in, they, they went in sort of with what they had, what they could cobble together on short notice. And they were outnumbered by the Ukrainian forces. The Ukrainian forces had about 250,000. The Russians had perhaps 160,000. Um, so instead of having three times as many, they actually had fewer troops than the Ukrainians. And, but they were forced to attack to try to preempt the battle that was, was looming, where the, uh, the Ukrainians had bashed these forces against the Don bass.

Speaker 2 (00:35:28):
Now, the Don bass is adjacent to Russia. It is a, a portion of Ukraine that did not join, uh, with the revolutionary government that conducted the co in 2014. And over through the, the government of, of Ukraine, uh, they, they refused to become a part of the new revolutionary, uh, government of Ukraine. And, uh, so they de they declared their independence and, uh, Ukraine had masked this enormous army to attack against the Don bass. And so Russia was forced to go in to preempt that, uh, that planned attack by Ukraine. And, uh, you could see that Russia very much hoped that they could conduct this special operation without unduly causing casualties for the Ukrainians, because they, they, they think of the Ukrainians, or at least they did think of the Ukrainians as, as brother SLS, uh, that, uh, they, they wanted to have good relations, but there, there was a famous picture with a, a Russian tank that had been stopped by a gathering of maybe 40 civilians who just walked out in the road and blocked the road.

Speaker 2 (00:37:04):
And the tanks stopped. I can tell you in Vietnam, if we had had, uh, a bunch of people who, who stood in the way of an American tank going through that tank would not have slowed down in the slightest. It wouldn't have honked the horn. It wouldn't have done anything, wouldn't have fired a warning shot. It, would've just gone on. And, and, uh, and I think that's more typical. I'm not, I'm not criticizing the Americans. Uh, I, I would, I was there and I was fighting and I probably would've have driven the tank straight through myself. But what I'm saying is that the, the rules of engagement for the Russians were very, very cautious. They didn't want to create a great deal of hatred and animosity. They, the Russians did not go in, they did not buy, um, uh, the electrical system, the, the media systems, uh, the water systems, all of these, the, the, the bridges and so forth.

Speaker 2 (00:38:13):
They tried to retain, uh, the infrastructure of Ukraine in good shape. Cause they, they wanted it to get back. They just wanted this to be over with and get back to normal. It didn't work. The Ukrainians, the, the resistance was unexpectedly, uh, hard. Uh, the Ukrainian soldiers fought with with great, great valor, great heroism. And, uh, and so now the, the, the game has been upped and it's become much, much more serious, but, uh, uh, it is amazing to look and, and to see that Russia dominates the air, they haven't knocked out the train systems. They haven't knocked out power plants. They haven't knocked out. Uh, so many things they've never bombed the, uh, uh, the, the buildings in the center of Keve. They, you know, the, the capital of, uh, of Ukraine, they haven't bombed the, the buildings where the parliament meets. Uh, they they've been incredibly reserved about these things, hoping against hope that peace could be achieved, but I don't think, I don't think Ukraine has anything to do with the decision about peace of war. I think the decision about peace of war is made in Washington, DC. Uh, as long as we want the war to continue, we will fight that were using Ukrainians as proxies, and we will fight it to the last Ukrainian death.

Speaker 1 (00:40:06):
How do you, um, project, uh, the potential of a war breaking out directly between the United States and Russia, and what, what would that be like?

Speaker 2 (00:40:18):
You know, if, if you go back to the first world war in 1914, you had the assassination of the Archduke of Austria, Hungary, he and his wife were killed as a result of those two people being killed. You had a domino if active all of these alliances and anger and media, uh, hysteria, and before it was over, I, I think it was 14 million people had been killed. It's always hard to get true numbers, but anyway, it was an enormous number of millions of people who died as a result of that. We need to recognize the risk of playing these games of chicken, where, for example, uh, the, the Turkish armed forces or the, the Turkish media just published an article saying that at, uh, Mart poll, where there was a great siege that the, the Russians ultimately won. The one area they haven't taken over is this tremendous steel plant.

Speaker 2 (00:41:37):
There are a lot of, uh, a lot of Ukrainian soldiers who are hold up there, and now it has come to light that apparently there are 50 French, senior officers who are trapped in that steel plant, along with the Ukrainians, the French soldiers have been on the ground fighting, directing the battle. And this was kept under wraps ultra secret, uh, because of the French elections that just occurred, had the French people known that there were a large number of French officers trapped and probably going to die in that steel plant. Uh, the elections would've gone the other way, Marine Lappen would've won. And, uh, uh, so it was very important for the entire deep state that had not come to light that these French officers were there. We know that there are NATO officers who are present in, on the ground in Ukraine, as advisors and so forth.

Speaker 2 (00:42:54):
We run the risk. Now, my guess is, and this is, this is a guess I, I could be wrong, but the, uh, the flagship of the, the Russian black sea fleet, the, uh, Moskva was sunk, uh, as a result of being struck by, uh, anti, uh, anti ship MIS missiles. My guess is that those missiles, I think there's a good chance. They were fired by the French now that's, I could be wrong, but those missiles are so ultra sensitive and so dangerous to our ships that I don't think that NATO would trust the missiles to Ukrainians or to anybody else. I think, I think they have to be maintained under NATO control and operation. So I think that it was probably, uh, NATO forces that actually sunk the Mova. And you can see we're taking these very reckless actions, and each time we sort of up the ante, we, we have two, uh, two Republican. I, I happen to be Republican, but two Republican, uh, us senators who haves said that, well, we might just need to use nuclear, nuclear weapons against Russia. Uh, that is insane. Uh, I, I think it's important that people begin to discuss what a, the nuclear war would would mean. Now we need to understand, we, we think, oh, well, we we're big and we're bad. And we have all this stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:44:45):
Russia is roughly comparable to the United States and nuclear power. Um, they have hypersonic missiles that we do not have. They can absolutely evade, uh, any, any detection, any timely detection, and they can fire missiles from, uh, from Russia and reach Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, uh, Baltimore, Washington, DC, New York city. And if you think about just Virginia, where I happen to live, uh, if, if there were a nuclear war and keep in mind, they also have a very large and effective fleet of nuclear submarines that lie off the coasts of the United States. Uh, they have a great number of, of nuclear tip missiles, and they can evade any defenses we have. So just in Virginia, if you look at it, all of Northern Virginia would be essentially annihilated. There would, there would hardly be any human life remaining in Loudon county, prince William county, Fairfax county, Arlington Alexandria, the Pentagon lies in, uh, in a county, the Pentagon would simply be a glowing mass of, of molten sand.

Speaker 2 (00:46:23):
There would be no human life there, and there would be no human life for many miles around it, just across the Potomac. Uh, the nation's capital. There would be no life remaining in, in the nation's capital. The capital building would disappear forever. All of the monuments, all of these glorious things, nothing would remain. If you go to the coast of Virginia, you have the Norfolk Naval shipyard, you have the port of Norfolk. Uh, you have, uh, uh, you have the, the greatest accumulation of Naval power on the face of the earth. This is where we park all of our, all of our aircraft carriers, uh, you know, our nuclear submarines, all of those things, there would be nothing remaining. There would be nothing remaining of any of those, uh, shipping industries there. Um, and, and you could carry this on you. You talk about New York city, um, probably New York city itself.

Speaker 2 (00:47:35):
Not only would everybody be killed, but it would probably be impossible for people to inhabit New York city for hundreds of years afterwards, that not only would it cease to, to be a place of, of vibrant human life, but probably going out for, you know, maybe half a millennium, it would not recover any sort of civilization. We need to understand the gravity of what we're doing, perhaps if, if life, and if it were a matter of life and death for the United States, uh, what happens in Ukraine? That would be one thing. Um, certainly when, when the Soviet union put missiles in Cuba, it targeted the United States. That was, that was worth taking the risk because it was right on our border and it threatened us. And it, it was, it was a battle worth fighting for, and a risk worth taking the Russians are in this, in exactly the mirror image, that situation, because for them, the life of Russia depends on stopping NATO from moving, advancing further, right into Ukraine, right to their borders. They cannot afford not to fight this war. They cannot afford not to win this war. So I think, I think toying with, with this constant escalation in a war that really in a place that has no significance to Americans, uh, you could is, is meaningless to Americans that has no, no impact on our day to day lives. Uh, and yet we are playing this reckless game that, uh, that risks the lives of all people in the United States and Western Europe for nothing just absolutely for nothing

Speaker 1 (00:49:58):
Many, many, uh, flag grade officers certainly understand the consequences that you just described, uh, in a rather hair raising way. Why is it, uh, while there are some generals speaking out in Italy, in, in France, in Germany, uh, warning that we are pursuing a course that could lead to nuclear war. Why are there not such voices from flag grade officers saying what you're saying here today, retired, perhaps,

Speaker 2 (00:50:37):
You know, um, there's been a tremendous deterioration in the quality of flag officers going back to, uh, perhaps, you know, AF after the time, maybe if, if, well, certainly the nineties we had, we had very, very fine flag officers during the time I was on, on active duty. I, I left in 94, uh, just superior quality. But what happened is, is subsequently, uh, the, we had, we had president Clinton takeover later. We had Obama, uh, we we've got, uh, Biden now and they apply a very strict political screen to their military officers. And, uh, we now have yes, men, these, these are not people whose principle devotion is to the United States and its people, their principle devotion is to their career and their ability to network with other, uh, military officers upon retirement. Uh, there's a, there's a, a very strong network that can place military, uh, generals into think tanks, where they promote more into, uh, organizations like Raytheon and, uh, and, uh, uh, and north of Grumman and all of these defense operations where they can get on, on boards and things like that.

Speaker 2 (00:52:24):
Um, and so there's, there's quite a person price that you pay for saying, Hey, stop. You know, war is, uh, war is not in the interest of the American people. If we had, if we had a better quality of, of individual, we would have people with the courage who would say, I, I don't care what it costs me personal, but, uh, it is very difficult to get into the senior ranks. If you are an individual guided by principle and patriotism and devotion to the people of this nation, that's just not how it works. And, uh, at some one point we need a president who will go in and, and, uh, and shake the tree and bring a lot of these people falling down from it because they're, they're dangerous. They're very dangerous to America,

Speaker 1 (00:53:26):
Haga lauch, uh, and the sheer Institute, uh, uh, have a petition. And we held conference on April 9th, uh, on the same theme, being that the only way to really stop this descent into hell and into potential nuclear Holocaust, uh, is for a new piece of west failure. Uh, in this case, a international conference, uh, to secure a new security architecture and a new development architecture, the right to development for all countries, uh, and like the piece of west failure, one in which, uh, all, all sides sit down together, recognize their interests, uh, their sovereign interests as including the sovereign interests of the others, uh, and forgiving all past crimes. Um, anything short of that is going to keep this division of the world into waring blocks. Uh, just like I asked, what's keeping the generals from speaking out why, and what will it take to get Americans to recognize that we can and must sit down with Russians and with Chinese and with all other nations and establish a true adjust world based on the, uh, dignity of man and the right to development and security.

Speaker 2 (00:54:52):
I, I think unfortunately there's going to have to be enormous pain to drive that just as there was with the piece of, of west failure, um, a nuclear war would do it, um, a, an economic cataly of unprecedented proportions resulting from the, from the, uh, unbridled printing of money that we've engaged in over, uh, the last 20 years. Um, there are things that that could be it about, um, but at this point, uh, the media has been so totally censored, uh, and so biased that, uh, the American people really don't don't have the perception of the need for anything of that sort. Um, it, it's going to be difficult, you know, something that some here here's something that's interesting that has happened, uh, here in this country, you would think the entire world is against Russia. It's not, uh, in fact, uh, there are major countries of the world that lean towards Russia, Russia in this war, uh, starting with China, but then Brazil, you've got South Africa, uh, Saudi Arabia, uh, a wide array of countries, tremendous India, India, tremendous, uh, tremendously, uh, supportive of Russia.

Speaker 2 (00:56:33):
And so the idea that somehow we, we have this enormously just cause, um, it doesn't strike a great deal of the world that it is just, and the much of the world does not accept the, the latest propaganda about, uh, about war crimes. This, this thing about Buka the, that that's probably the most prominent of all the war crimes discussions. And what was the BCA? Uh, there was a, there was a film taken, uh, of, of a vehicle driving down the road in, in BCA, which had been recaptured from the Russians and every hundred feet or so there was some person with his hands, uh, zip tied behind his back, and he'd been killed. Um, this was discovered it, it was not announced until four days after the Ukrainians had retaken BCA. Now we knew almost nothing about it. Uh, we, we actually didn't even have proof that people had been killed, but assuming they had, we didn't know where they had been killed.

Speaker 2 (00:57:51):
We did not know who they were. We did not know who killed them. We did not know why they were killed. No one could provide an adequate motive for the Russians to have killed them. The Russians held BCCA for a month, if they were gonna kill them, why didn't they kill them during that month? And if you were going to slaughter a bunch of people, wouldn't, they all be in one place and wouldn't you gun them all down there. Why would they be distributed it along a, a roadside, you know, a mile along the way? It makes no sense. What we do know is that four days after the, the mayor of BCA joyously announced that the, the city was liberated four days after the Ukrainian army had moved in and their special, uh, their, their propaganda arm of the Ukrainian military were there. All of a sudden, there were these dead people on the road.

Speaker 2 (00:59:05):
How come they weren't there when the Russians were there? How come they only here after the Russians were gone? Um, if I were, you know, if I were looking that as, as, as simply a standard criminal case, and I was talking to, to criminal investigation division, or the FBI, or, or military police or something, I'd say, okay, the first thing let's take a look at the, the Ukrainians. It, it, my guess would be. And, you know, you start with the hunch when you're investigating a crime. My hunch is that the Ukrainians killed off these people after they moved in. And after they looked around and said, okay, who, who was friendly towards the Russian troops while the Russians were here, we're gonna, we're gonna execute 'em the, that would be my guess, cuz I don't see any motive for the Russians to have just sort of killed a few people on their way out of town.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Uh, so, so you have the, and nobody questions these because, because the corporate media is so monolithic, we know for a fact from the mouth of the head of a Ukrainian hospital, the guy who, who ran the hospital, he had, he boasted that he had given strict orders to all of his doctors that when, uh, wounded, uh, Russian POWs, when casualties were, are brought in, they were to be castrated. Now this is a horrific war crime admitted from the mouth of the hospital administrator. And the Ukrainian government said, uh, kinda will look into that, you know, like is no big thing. Um, I, I, I, I can't think of a more horrific, horrific war crime ever. Where did you hear about it on ABC and, and MSNBC and CNN and Fox news, not a whisper. And yet the proof is undeniable. We had, we had another clip where there was a, uh, a pow, uh, gathering point where the Ukrainians would bring POWs to a central point for processing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
And this is about a seven minute video and the Ukrainian soldiers simply gunned them all down. And, uh, and they had probably 30 of these, uh, these wounded Russian soldiers laying on the ground. Some of them clearly dying from their wounds. Some of them, they put plastic bags over their head. Now these are, these are guys who are laying there, uh, sometimes fatally wounded with their hands, zip tied behind their backs. And they've got plastic bags over their heads, so that making it difficult to breathe and because they can't raise their hands, they can't, they can't take the bags off so that they can, they can breathe. And then they at, at the end of the video, the, the, the Ukrainians bring in a van and there are three UN wounded, uh, Russian POWs. And without the slightest thought or hesitation as the three come off and their, their hands are bound behind their backs, they gun down two of them right on camera.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
And they fall over. And the third one gets on his knees and, and begs, uh, that, that, you know, they won't hurt him. And then they gun him down just, and these, these are crimes and these were not refuted by the Russian or by the Ukrainian government, but you'd never even know that they occurred so far. I will tell you that the only proven, I'm not saying that there aren't war crimes happening on both sides. I'm just the only ones where I have seen fairly irrefutable proof of war crimes have been on the Ukrainian side. Now, often you, you hear it said, well, the, the Russians have, you know, they've destroyed this or destroyed that. Well, I gotta tell you it, you go back to, to the wars that we fought when we, when we invaded Iraq, the shock in all we destroyed, um, we destroyed virtually everything, uh, in, in Iraq, everything of, of significance.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Every we, we bombed military and civilian targets, uh, without much discrimination, the coalition flew a hundred thousand sorts. In 40 days, you compare that to the Russians who have only flown 8,000 sorts in about the same period of time, a hundred thousand American bombs versus 8,000, not, not bombs, but SOEs of bombs hundred thousand thousand versus 8,000, and about the same time. And, uh, and I think the, the Russians have tended to be more selective. Whereas we went out, we, the shock and all the, the, the philosophy of can all is that you destroy everything that is needed to sustain human life. And to, for, for a city to function, you knock out the water supply, the electrical supply, uh, the, the heat, uh, the, you know, the oil, the gasoline, so that you, you knock out all of the major bridges. Um, and then you just continue and you just destroy everything. So it it's really ironic that, uh, and, and keep in mind, Iraq is a, is a relatively small country. Ukraine is a huge country hundred thousand SOEs in 42 days, 8,000 SOEs in about the same time, a tremendous difference in violence between what we did in Iraq and what they have done in Ukraine. So, uh, there's, there's simply no credibility when you actually get down to the facts and you look at, at the, uh, at the way they at the war has been conducted

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
Well, Senator black, Colonel black. Um, I, I think the way you have described the horror that's already taking place, uh, and considering that we can't wait for a nuclear war to provoke a new piece of west failure. Uh, and I would suggest that what you've described is already horrific enough. And when combined with the hyperinflationary breakdown now sweeping the Western world, which everybody is being affected. Uh, we, we believe that we have to take that as the adequate horror, uh, and recognition of, uh, of a dissent into a dark age to motivate, um, citizens in Europe and the United States. Uh, and we are finding that there is a waking up of people who have not wanted to look at their, a responsibility to the human race as a whole in the past, who now are forced to consider that, which is the basis on which we've called for this, in this petition for an international conference of all nations, with the us, Russia, China, India, and so forth sitting down to, uh, end this horror, but to also bring about a true, a true, uh, peace for mankind and an era of peace through development.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
Uh, and we thank you for, uh, for being giving this, uh, this, this breath of ugly truth, uh, to a population which needs to hear it. Uh, and if you have any final thoughts, I ask you to give your final greetings.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
I, I I'll just add one thing. And I, I thank the Scher Institute for the tremendous effort that you've made, uh, towards, uh, achieving world peace. It's, uh, it, it is one of the most important efforts ever made. And, uh, and I certainly applaud that, you know, if you look at, at Russia, uh, the, the Russian troops that went into battle in Ukraine for the most part had never experienced combat, uh, they, this is a peace time army, uh, Russia doesn't fight overseas wars they've Syria is the only significant overseas engagement that they a have had. Um, you compare that with the United States where literally speaking, if, if a, if a soldier retires today after a 30 year career in the military, he will not have served a single day when the United States was at peace, kind of an amazing thing. And you contrast that with the, with the Russian military, where with few exceptions, the, the, uh, the country has been at peace.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
So we, we really need to start thinking about peace <affirmative> and about, uh, the limits of warfare and, uh, this idea that somehow, uh, we need this zero sum game where, where we take from you. And, and that enhances us, we're in a, in a, in a world where everyone can gain and prosper by peace. And, uh, but I, I, I, I'm concerned that the hyperinflation may be the wake up call that, uh, that jolts the world into a recognition that we must have a new paradigm for the future. And I think the piece of west failure at that point might become a possibility. So I thank you again for the opportunity to be here. And, uh, uh, you know, there's always hope, and I think there'll be good things in the future, uh, with the blessings of God.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
And thank you very much from Scher Institute, the Laus organization, and E I R we are, uh, we'll get this posted as quickly as we possibly can. It's have a impact. You,

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
You.