EIR Interview with U.S. Colonel: War or Peace Will Be Decided in Washington, Not in Kiev

In an interview given to EIR on April 26, Col. (ret.) Richard Black dramatically refuted the recurring claim by the war party that the Russians are committing horrendous war crimes in Ukraine today, similar to what they allegedly did in Syria, in Aleppo a few years ago. Col. Black, a former Chief of the Army Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon and a true “American patriot” as he stresses, has exposed the lies about the war in Syria spread in the West for years now, and he personally visited Aleppo, Damascus, etc. He explains once again in this interview that the United States knowingly armed al-Qaeda, and deployed them as surrogate forces to bring down the Assad government in Syria through terrorist operations.

Russia was “extremely reluctant” to get involved in combat in Syria, he says, and provided the airpower, at the invitation of the legitimate government, to stop the terrorists, but deployed no significant battle troops. The U.S., on the contrary, illegally occupied the northeast breadbasket and oil resources. As for Aleppo, the city had been totally destroyed by the terrorists before the Russians even entered Syria.

Coming to the U.S. policy against Russia, Col. Black stressed that NATO should have been dissolved after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the end of the Warsaw Pact. However, the U.S. had a political-military strategy of expanding its empire (in league with the British). They tried it in the Mideast, he said, and now they are doing it in Eurasia.

In Col. Black’s view, Vladimir Putin decided to move forces into Ukraine out of dire necessity, after the Ukraine Army had mobilized a huge force on the verge of invading the self-proclaimed republics in the Donbas. An invasionary force, as a rule of thumb, must have three times the forces as the country it is invading, in tanks, planes, troops, etc., but the Russian forces had only 160,000 troops compared to Ukraine’s 250,000. Russia refused to directly attack Kiev, and to target civilian infrastructure such as power and water systems, railways, etc., although they dominate the air and could have done so. Their objective is to liberate the Donbas.

Washington cares nothing about Ukraine or the Ukrainian people, he stated, the target is Russia. Moreover, it is clear for him that “the decision about peace or war” will be made in Washington, and not in Kiev. The U.S. will continue the war, “using the Ukrainians as proxies”, until “the last Ukrainian death”.

Commenting on the proposal of two U.S. Senators to threaten Russia with a nuclear attack, he called it “absolutely insane”, outlining what a thermonuclear war would mean in terms of the total destruction of U.S. cities. “We need to understand the gravity of what we are doing,” he urged. Starting a world war over Ukraine is insane.

Asked if the American citizenry can be recruited to the Schiller Institute call for a new Peace of Westphalia, and a new security and development architecture, he regretted the total censorship American media, but agreed that the current danger together with onrushing hyperinflationary collapse of the financial system may deliver the shock needed to bring the people out of their fantasy state.

Watch the video and read the transcript here.