 acting and thinking out of my experience as CIA analysts and specifically a Russian analyst that since I learned a lot at taxpayer expense, maybe I'd give some back here by trying to sum up where I stand or where I see the facts leading on Ukraine and Russia's role in it. So may we have the first slide, please. Dr. King railed against injustice as he did against lies. And he said this about injustice. He said, like a boy that can never be cured unless it is opened up with all its pus flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light. So to injustice must be exposed with all the friction this exposure creates to the air of national opinion and the primacy of human conscience before it can be cured. So we're gonna try to expose some things. We're gonna try to look at the facts as soon as they lead us without trying to lead one another in one or another direction. I thought that would be a good idea to start with a slight review of Russian history because a lot of what I say here will have to do with my expertise. So we'll have to deal with what I see the Russians fearing and what they're doing. And you can take my word for what it's worth but I've been at it for a half a century now. So I'm trying to give it back. May we have the next slide, please. This one talks about Russia's history which has been a short history by European or Asian standards only goes back to the ninth century really. But if you look at that, look at that short for a second. Russia's always been kind of fending off invaders. One of the most distinctive invasions, if we can call it that, was what they call a golden whore, the Zalataya, the Zalataya Odin. The invasion from the Mongols, from Mongolia. They call it the Tartarskaya Iga, the Tartar Yoke, but they experienced that for fully two centuries and 40 years if my math is correct on that. Next, they had to fend off folks from where? Lithuania, Poland, and Scandinavian countries. Finland, Norway, Sweden. It was a terrific battle back there in the 1500s and the 1700s. You forget that the Russians have this history with those parts of the world. And the reason I circled the 1700 is because that's when Peter the Great came into power. That's when he really established the city of St. Petersburg looking out at the Baltic. And that's when he decided that Russia's future was with Europe. He was the only Russian Tsar to travel in Western Europe. As a matter of fact, he traveled incognito, worked on the Wars of Rotterdam for beats ache and learned a lot about Western ways, came back and he's immortalized by Alexander Pushkin, the poet who said quite briefly, Prirodo esti snam suššššteno ve vropu prorobit akno. Okay, this is from a famous poem, The Bronze Horseman. So what does it mean? It means nature itself has preordained prirodo esti snam suššššteno ve vropu into Europe to prorobit akno. Prorobit is cut through a window into Europe. And that's what he tried to do. Now that was 1700. What is it now? 220022, that's a lot of, that's a lot of years. And well, you can do the math yourself. The reason I made this point is simply that that's it, they've closed the window. By mutual agreement, so to speak, the West and Russia has closed that window and put the shades down and I can almost hear them puttying the new glass to the window, it's over. Russia's not looking to the West anymore, at least not for the nonce. It's looking East where it finds much more hospitable people, primarily first and foremost, China. So, Hitler, we all know about Hitler. War, war, two killed, most educated people in America know the casualty figures just for the record. This is what they were on the Russian side, 26 million plus on the American side. You could do the math and you could see what percentage of Americans were killed for each hundred Russians. We, I grew up fearing, hiding under my desk could be fearing a nuclear attack by Russia. I was pretty much ingrained with the notion that God, I'd walk around the cities and see why are they building these skyscrapers? Don't they know, don't they know that just one decision by the Russians would have it all fall down and be cremated? So it was sort of a personal thing. When I got involved, they have some of my military service with the CIA as a Russian analyst, that is an analyst of Russian relations with China, with the International Communist Movement, with Vietnam and the rest of the Far East. I was fortunate enough to become the chief of the branch working on Soviet foreign policy at CIA. And I had three of my branch members seconded to work with the S.T.A.L.T. delegation working out the strategic arms limitation talks, whether it was in Helsinki or in Vienna. We're talking 1970 and thereabouts. So I had three people there, one with the delegation, one with the military experts and one reporting at headquarters to the president of the CIA and so forth. I was published to be in Moscow in May of 1972 when those accords were signed, first and foremost, the Anti-Bullistic Missile Treaty. For those of you who are not fully familiar with it, what it did was it simply said, look, we're building more and more offensive arms. We're trying to build defensive, ABM, Anti-Bullistic Missile Systems. This doesn't make a lot of sense. Let's see if we can delimit the anti-missile systems in such way that neither side can expect to be able to make a first strike without having to suffer immense retaliation. In other words, if you couldn't defend against a secondary retaliatory strike, it would make more sense for you to make a first strike. So they decided, well, yeah, let's do that. And it was Nixon and Kissinger that decided that we could persuade the Russians to do this, partly because they see themselves in competition with China for favor in Washington. In other words, they don't want the Chinese to steal the march on us. And we saw flexibility, not only on strategic arms control talks, but also on things like Berlin, the Berlin Agreement that came in that period of time. And so when I was in Moscow and I saw the achievement of this anti-bullistic missile treaty, it was a big personal high as well as a professional high because we had a big role to play. They asked Kissinger and Nixon, do you think the Russians are serious? And we said, yeah, we think they're serious. Why? Well, they're finding it very expensive, but also they're in competition with China. Now, when Kissinger asked us, all right, we're ready to deal, but if the Russians violate this treaty, can you verify that they're violating it? And we said, yeah, sure, but how soon? I think it was 10 days. Kissinger said, all right. Now, there's the merit, there's the beauty of and over there I know, for over there I, you know, trust, but verify. Did the Russians cheat? Yeah, they taught, they cheated. In 1983, we saw this incredible, incredible ABM radar, which is the only thing it could be, going up in Siberia at a place called Krasnoyarsk. What did Reagan do? He called the Russians on it. We showed them the images. It took six years of negotiations. They tore it down. Now, that's the way we used to do things. When you have a problem, you talk about it. And as I say, after Reagan left when Bush was there, they tore that radar down because they conceded that it was a violation of the treaty. INF, well, that's another story. We'll talk a little bit more about the INF treaty, but suffice it to say at this point, when folks told me that Garmashov had suggested, 1985, that we do away with these intermediate range nuclear missiles, ones that could go from 500 miles to 5,500 miles. And one of them destroyed, I said, right. You're going to destroy a whole class of short range and medium range ballistic missiles, right? And they said, yeah, guess what? The Doverai nor Proverai was so potent and so reliable in those days that they went ahead and did it. They destroyed SS-20 missiles in the Soviet Union and they destroyed the Pershing missiles that were already in place in Western Europe. So I say here in this thing, requiem, what's this requiem thing? Well, those treaties no longer exist. How did that happen? Well, as most of you know, George W. Bush in 2002. So we're talking 1972 to 2002, Bush got out of the treaty. 30 years of the kind of stability that existed by knowing that neither side could make a first stride out of the window, okay? And INF, well, we had Mr. Trump get out of that one. That had been in effect since 1987. He got out of it just before he left in 2019. Now, when I say why? Well, if you are Russian, put yourself in Vladimir Putin's shoes here. Why? Well, why, why? Did he get an answer to that? He claims that nobody ever explained it to him and what is still happening next helped explain it to him. We have to put this whole business of Ukraine in context. In short, after Russia and East Europe were falling apart, George H. W. Bush, so the first president Bush, I know him well. I used to brief him every other morning when he was vice president. A little aside here. I don't discuss what we discussed in those briefings. That's sort of sacrosanct, but I am willing to talk about other things. And I can tell you that my Russian language teaching came in real handy when you got a bunch of came into power. He says, Ray, for God's sake, how do you pronounce this name? And I said, Mr. Vice President, say garbage. I said, garbage. Now say, off with accent, off. That's you got it, Mr. Vice President. Got it, got it, got it. Got it, got it, got it, got it. It was the only one. Reagan never quite got it, but it was the only one. And I said, well, now I can explain the orthography to you why, you know, an accent that, no, I saw that Bush was not interested in that. But Bush, I knew quite well. And what Bush did when East Europe and when the Soviet Union imploded was to call Michael and get him a shove immediately and to say, look, I'm not gonna dance on the remnants of the Berlin Wall, okay? But we need to talk. Things are falling apart. We need to talk about what happens in your country and what happens in Europe. How soon can you meet me? Well, I got up at Trump said, well, three weeks. In three weeks, they met in the middle of the Mediterranean on the Isle of Malta. And Bush said, look, I'll reiterate, we're not gonna take advantage of you. Now, how soon can you see my Secretary of State? You meet six weeks? So first week of February, 1990 now, James Baker, Secretary of State, not at all a bad Secretary of State, my Jew, shows up in Moscow. Long story short, he says, look, Michael and Chevronadze, his foreign minister was also there. Here's the deal. Here's the deal. I would like you to accept the reunited Germany. When I heard that, I have very mixed emotions. Maybe I watched too many World War II films, but instinctively McGovern didn't want to reunite Germany. That's trouble. That's been trouble for centuries. Now, McGovern doesn't come from a country that lost 26 million in World War II to the Nazis. But Michael and Chevronadze do. And so this was a big pill. This was a bitter pill as well. So they said, what's the quote for this bitter quid? And Baker said, well, how would it be if we promised not to move NATO countries one inch eastward toward the Soviet Union at the time? And well, they bought it. They bought an oral promise not to do that. I guess you know that this was not in accord with what George H.W. Bush was saying, even before the Berlin Wall fell, George H.W. Bush was very, very prominent in saying, look, we want a Europe that's whole and free and at peace. I went on to say, from Lisbon to Vladivostok, what happened? Well, we know that when Bill Clinton came in, he decided to do exactly what Bush had promised not to do, the first Bush. And he extended NATO adding these countries that's Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and so forth. So I'll say, I'll begin with Bush again. And so Bush was interested in a Europe that's free and whole and at peace. And what happens in 1996? Well, Bill Clinton, who succeeded Bush, of course, renaissance on the promise against all kinds of advice. George Kennedy said, this is the most fatal error you could make. So he said, well, what's the point that you could make since the end of World War II? Jack McLaugh. Jack tells me, Jack McLaugh was the ambassador at the end of the Soviet Union. He tells me that he testified in Congress and he made an eloquent case. This would be crazy. This might cause a war with Russia if you incorporate these states later Ukraine into NATO. And he was told after he testified by the staffers, excellent testimony. You're absolutely right, Jack. But this is October. It's an election year. It's October 22nd. We're going to win this election. And we need those states in the Midwest that are full of Czechs and Poles and some Hungarians as well. So Clinton has decided to do it. There's nothing you could say, however eloquent to prevent it. And so in 1999, it takes a while to join NATO. These three, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic become part of NATO. So what about now? Well, NATO now is 30, 30, 30. Are any of those countries besides Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic east of Germany? Yeah, they all are. Every single one of them. So it's a double-aiding in size. I think there was 16 when Baker made the promise. Now it's 30. And they're all to the east of East Germany. Let me talk a little bit about those days right after Baker made the promise and right after this clown, this drunken clown, but he's Yeltsin took power in Russia. Well, it's a sad story because what happened was he was persuaded to pretty much give away the Russian economy to these oligarchs from east, from Russia itself, and from west, the Harvard boys that showed Yeltsin how to do it. Russia's assets, its economy, pretty much went down the drain. You know, I think that in human terms, maybe the most telling statistics that I know, and this mind you is from the World Bank, the mortality rate for men during those years. And I refer specifically to 1991 to 1995. The age went down from 63 to 57. So in four or five years, the mortality rate for men went from age 63 to 57. I had to write that down because it sounds a little bit unbelievable. Again, the source is the World Bank. Now, in 1996, it looked like Yeltsin was surely going to lose the election. Well, the Harvard boys and the Clinton administration came to the rescue, poured all kinds of advice and money into the election and won it for Boris Yeltsin for more years. And if you don't believe me, Read Time magazine, which had a cover story on that just about this time, it shows Yeltsin really benefiting from all the advice and the money that the U.S. and the IMF and other places had pumped in. So the next slide would be titled, 2002 U.S. leaves the ABM Treaty. Well, we mentioned that before. That was a shock to everyone, including me. Well, I wish that it was a little arcane, but he did. And the Russians started wondering what's going on here. Now, in 2008, and this is where it really starts getting specifically applied to Ukraine, per se. A newly appointed foreign minister in Moscow, Sergei Lavrov, he calls our ambassador, who happens to be William Burns. Now he's the head of the CIA by coincidence. He calls him and he says, Mr. Burns, do you know what, Nyet means? Yeah, it means no. He says, well, Nyet means Nyet. Okay. If you admit Ukraine into NATO, we will have to decide whether we have to intervene in Ukraine, because we can't tolerate this kind of member of a military alliance right on our border. So you tell your secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice at the time, Nyet means Nyet. Long story short, Bill Burns sent that message back to Condoleezza Rice. Unadulterated. He had the courage to say, you know, Russians do have their own strategic interests. They're even entitled to have their own strategic interests. And this is the way that they look at it. The cable was titled Nyet means Nyet. Russia's red lines on Ukrainian entrance into NATO. Wow. How do we know that? Well, Julian Assange published that cable. It's authentic. No one has questioned it. And if I've seen one cable from Embassy Moscow, I think I've seen about 5,000. So it was real enough. First of February was that cable. The first of February was in Lavrov, who was new at the time. He's still for our minister, as most of you know, where he read the riot act to our ambassador, Bill Burns. So did Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney and George Bush take this seriously? Well, just two months later at a summit, NATO summit in Bucharest, the date was April 3, February 1, April 3. NATO declared Ukraine and Georgia, country of Georgia, will become members of NATO. That was the declaration. It was reasserted as recently as the NATO summit in June of last year. NATO will become a member. Ukraine will become a member of NATO. Okay, that's 2008. Now, 2012. Medvedev, who rotated into the presidency for a while because Putin was not allowed to, under Russian law, allowed to be president for two consecutive terms at the time. Medvedev talked to Obama on an open mic. We didn't realize it was open, of course. Obama talked to Medvedev, who was the president at the time, and he said, look, give me some time. Give me some time. I know you're interested in talking about these ABMs, but give me some time. Give me some time. Once I get reelected, I'll be more flexible. And Medvedev says, okay, yeah, I'll tell Vlad. I'll tell Vladimir, okay? Well, there was no example of Russian flexibility on these matters for the rest of Obama's term. Far from it. In 2014, we had a coup in Kiev, appropriately called the most blatant coup in history. Why? Well, because it was advertised on the 4th of February, 2014. Didn't take place until the 22nd of February, 2014. So what did you have for two and a half weeks? It was on YouTube on the 4th. I thought that's the end of that coup attempt. No, no, they went ahead and did it. Now, when you're talking about Ukraine and you're talking about Crimea in specifically, you're talking about a strategic interest of Russia to say the least. And Crimea, of course, is the site. Sifastopol is the naval base that is ice free all year round. And the major Russian naval base established as early as Catherine the Great during the time of our revolution. Now, as Putin watched this going on, no explanation for the ABM treaty, well, and now ABMs and ballistic missiles are starting to appear in Romania and Poland. He started asking, you know, what does this really mean here? And so he sort of asked the US, what does this mean? And they tell him, oh, it's not directed at you. It's directed at the threat from Iran. The threat from a country that doesn't have that range of missiles and really actually doesn't have nuclear warheads. But that's what it was. Oh, they could get nuclear warheads, right? So Putin poured his card out to US representatives and said, you know what, we're not going to tolerate this because we know that these so-called ABM sites can easily be converted into offensive missile sites with a slow flying cruise missiles or hypersonic missiles. So he couldn't get through to Western statesmen, but he did try to get through to some Western journalists. Now I have a clip that I like to show here where Putin is talking to Western journalists about this problem. I like you to pay really good attention because if you're not, you're going to miss it. It's only one and a half minutes, regarding not only Putin's expressions, but if you can please read the subtitles. He's going to give you an idea of how, well, as I say, Putin pretty much loses it uncommon for him. So maybe we have that video, please. These Western journalists were in St. Petersburg for an economic summit. So there's sort of a captive audience. Putin invites them. And the first thing he says to them is, now I don't expect you to report this factually to your newspapers. And I don't even expect you to tell your superiors about it. These rockets are put into a capsule that is used to launch the Tomahawk medium-range missile to the sea base. There are now anti-rockets that are capable of hitting targets at a distance of 500 kilometers. But we know that technologies are developing. We know about a year when the Americans will get a new missile, which will be at a distance of 500 kilometers, 1,000 kilometers, and then more. And from that moment on, they will begin to threaten our nuclear potential. We know what's going to happen in a year. And they know what we know. It's only you who hang your head on your ears, as they say. And you, in turn, hang your own population. And people don't feel the danger. That's what worries me. But how can we not understand? We are dragging the world into a completely new dimension. That's what the problem is. It's like nothing is happening. But I don't even know how to deal with it. All right. You have seen the fellow himself, Putin, get a little exasperated. Western journalists say, oh, wow, that's interesting. And he can't seem to get through to them, even though he tried to set the stage by saying, look, I don't expect you to report this. You never do. But try to understand. And he, in my view, it kind of loses it. He's talking about Tomahawk. OK, again, Russian doesn't have the letter H. So it's Tomahawk missiles, right? And, you know, the US experts tell me that Putin is exactly right in saying that the little capsule of the installation that can accommodate not only Tomahawk missiles, but hypersonic missiles when the US gets them. And that that leaves not much time, not much time at all for Putin to react. So what I'm saying here is simply that this is a unique example of a thing that was not published in the West and now has been taken down from the website from which I fetched it. But that gives you some idea of how Putin was looking at what it meant for the US to leave the ABM treaty and so forth. So let's turn now to more recently. Now, this is important because as we Russian analysts used to do back in the day, you need to pay very close attention to what the Russians and the Chinese and other people say, because it gives unique clues as to how they feel and what they're doing. And you have to read it with circumspection, but media analysis is kind of a lost art in Western media. We try to still do it here and we come up with some conclusions. So best forward to December of last year, 2021. So Putin is talking about these launchers that already exist in Romania that are going into Poland. He's talking about them as being a direct threat to Russian national security. He's assembled his highest ranking admirals and generals before what's equivalent to a state of the union message from the military, the Ministry of Defense. And he talks to them and he says, look, you know, this is extremely alarming and this is a direct quote as well. If missiles deployed in Ukraine, the flight time to Moscow will be only seven to 10 minutes. Whoa, that would be for cruise missiles. Five minutes for hypersonic systems. Five minutes. Now this is December of last year. And the Russians are really worried about what's going to happen because they've started this negotiation process, which will begin three weeks after this. But he's talking to his military here. And he says, you know, we need, we need an iron bound written written agreement at this time to prohibit this kind of thing. And his military. Okay, this is not fact now. This is interpretation. If you look at his military. In my view, you can see them saying, right. Vladimir Vladimirovich wasn't the ABM treaty sort of written down. How about the INF treaty that Trump exited in 2019 with that wasn't that written down. Vladimir written agreements better than promises perhaps, but they don't cut it for us. We need something better. So during this time in December, we had a call between Biden and poutine on the 7th of December, Biden Putin telephone calls. Now, before they call on the 30th, right before New Year's Eve. There was a call between Biden actually a zoom sort of thing between Biden and poutine at which there was an agreement to start negotiations on these things. Real negotiations on strategic arms. And intermediate arms. Know what happened. Well, on the 15th. The Russians table their draft treaty, the draft treaty to the US and the one to NATO, which pretty much codified their, their demands or their wishes for, for a treaty to for a written treaty. So that was the 15th of December. Coincidentally or not. Poutine had a one on one telephone call with President Steve of China that same day. I think that the timing may have been significant. So they gave this draft treaty to, to, to the US and Poutine's aides were just really, really wondering what the US response would be. Well, they got none. None to speak of. And then when at the end of the month, all of a sudden, the Kremlin makes it clear to the White House. Look, Mr. Poutine needs to talk to Mr. Biden and like right away. And the US officials were flummoxed. What was this all about? We're going to start negotiations in the Geneva on the 9th and 10th of January. We already agreed to that. That's, that's fast enough. Why do, why does Biden have to talk to Poutine now? Well, to his credit, Biden agreed and talked with Vladimir Poutine. And what did Biden say? Well, we had the Russian readout of that call and it's in this, it's actually in this slide. And it says Joseph Biden emphasized that Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike missiles in Ukraine. Oh, wow. So this is the 30th of December last year. We have a promise at least according to the Russians that Biden said, all right, you're, you're concerned about deploying offensive strike missiles. The US, actually the word was Washington has no intention of deploying offensive strike missiles in Ukraine. Well, Poutine's Britain, you, primarily you already used to a cough, who's his primary primary, primary advisor on this went, wow, he said, this is great. This satisfies, this satisfies many of the things we wanted in that treaty. And indeed, if memory serves about six of the nine things that Russia had wanted had to do with these intermediate offensive strike missiles. And what happens? Well, there's a follow-up call, February. So December 30th follow-up. And this is described specifically as a follow-up call to the one on the eve of New Year's Eve. And it says Poutine made clear after the call, that Biden's proposals did not really address the non-deployment of strike weapons, weapons systems on Ukrainian territory. Wow. So what happened? Biden makes this undertaking on the 30th of December. The Russians crow about it as a really good step to, toward these successful negotiations. And then it drops in the cracks. I'll leave it to you to figure out what happened, but you can understand why Ushakov and Poutine were both really, really wonder, in wonderment as to all of a sudden, just a few weeks later, well, February 12th that this proposal had disappeared from the radar screen. Now, my thought and this is interpretation is that, well, Biden, I'm sorry, Poutine was under certain pressure from his military as they, as they indicated, you know, they were going to be satisfied with written agreements that could be ripped up. And he needed to do something about this. He may have reassured them that well, Biden made this promise. There was great crowing in Moscow. And all of a sudden, this promise disappears from the radar screen. We're talking early February now, 2022. And here, here we are, you know, just a couple of weeks before Poutine makes that fateful decision to invade Ukraine. Next slide has to do with China. What does China have to do with all this? Well, when Biden met with Poutine, I don't I on June 16th of last year, he made a gratuitous remark getting on the planes. And I'm not going to tell you what I told Poutine, but this is, you know, this is really important. Poutine is being squeezed by China. China has a long 1000 mile border with Russia. That's going to be not only a big economic, but a military power or Poutine's got a really big problem. Okay. Well, the Chinese and the Russians most of the rest of last year, trying to advise, trying to make sure that Biden realized that these, these advisors that he had were working out of a textbook that was four or five decades old. I may have contributed to those textbooks and that the situation with respect to the squeeze on Russia from China, what was more like a fraternal embrace that had not existed ever before between these two countries. So Poutine is in Beijing for the opening of the Olympics. They issue an incredibly close joint statement saying their, their alliance exceeds a normal alliance and actually, but it has no end, no upper end. Now question, this is interpretation. Okay. What did, what did Poutine tell Z about his intention? They have to make it may have to invade Ukraine. Well, my notion is that he said, now presidency, I know you're my best friend. Z's phrase. The Americans don't seem to be listening to us. It kind of made a promise back on the 30th December. It's dropped off the radar screen. Bush and Bush Biden may have good intentions. He's not his own man. The Ukrainian forces look like they're about to attack our compatriots in the Donbass. The Nazis are not going to go away. We've already lost 12 to 14,000 compatriots from Shelling from Ukrainian forces. We're going to have to go into Ukraine. I just want to let you know ahead of time. What does he say? You mean after the Olympics, right? If the Olympics are over. Now that may not be exactly the way it went, but I think the proof is in the pudding. My calculation of Poutine indicates that he wouldn't be so crazy as to start this major war without the backing of a really strong neighbor. And did he get that backing? You know, the Chinese have always been the last defenders of the principles of the West Fallen Treaty, the West Failure Treaty, 1648. After the Europeans were killing each other often in the 30 years war and earlier, they decided it's a better way to do this. And so we should have borders. They should not be violated. We should have sovereignty. Now China, that was this core fundamental principle. Suffice it to say that in my view, China gave Poutine a waiver on that. And this is big. It's going to be bigger. A waiver on this. Now what I mean by that, well, not only did they endorse and fail to criticize what Poutine did, but they changed their rhetoric. The rhetoric now we're not always insistent on West Failure. What we're insisted on now is we look on each action quote on its own merits. So Poutine got a waiver on that. And that could not be more important. Now I'd like to kind of wind up here eventually, but not before I talk a little bit about the current debate. We're having people say, well, you know, Poutine is evil and Poutine is trying to take over the rest of Europe. We have Fiona Hill, who was the National Intelligence Officer for Russia, saying that, you know, Poutine wants to take over Europe, wants to chase out the United States, and wants to tell us, don't let the door hit your back on the way out. Words. So there is a lot of ideology in my view, idiot ideology going around here, because, you know, there's no evidence. There's not a centilla of evidence that Russia is about to invade any native country to take it over, occupy it or anything like that. It's sort of like permit this digression. It's sort of like Rudy Giuliani telling the Speaker of the House of Arizona, we have, we know that the election was fixed. It was corrupt and you ought to look into it. And the Speaker of the House says, oh, that's interesting. Well, what's your evidence? Here's the kicker, Rudy Giuliani. Oh, we have lots of theories, but we don't have any evidence. Well, lots of theories that Poutine wants to take over the whole world, Europe as a stepping stone, but no evidence. Now that doesn't do it for people. People are saying, well, wait a second, you know, he invaded another country. You have to, don't you feel, don't you feel like he's a, as one of my friends called him, despicable? That you despised him? Well, here's an academic, a very respected academic who put this in words. He says, I believe that both the U.S. and the EU were right to respond to Poutine's original invasion of Ukraine, however provoked Poutine may have been. Okay, however provoked Poutine may have been. Remember, we were all kids at one point, right? And we get into a fight maybe with a brother or sister. And what was the first thing we'll say when our parents intervene, he hit me first. She provoked me. He hit me first. So who's to blame here? People want to say, well, look, it's an invasion. It doesn't matter. Well, it's unprovoked. Well, it ain't unprovoked. And some of the evidence that I have reduced here, and that's just some of the evidence that's available. It shows that, you know, there was ample provocation. So when people say to me, look, you should think this and you should say this, are you going to not condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Well, the best I can say is I'm trying to understand it. I'm trying to tell people how this comes out of Russian history and Russian feeling of threat from the West. And, you know, I think this is more important. I would actually be a little hypocritical. If I were Putin, I don't know what I'd do, given the threat to his country. That is, after all, his major duty, as everyone sees it, that the President defends the country. So, you know, Meersheimer, John Meersheimer, spelled this out in a really good way. On June 16th of this year, oddly, one year after Putin and Biden met, but that's neither here nor there. He says, you know, look, this is a conclusion that I agree with. He says, the tragic truth is that had the West not pursued NATO expansion into Ukraine, it is unlikely there would be a war in Ukraine today, and Crimea would still be part of Ukraine. In essence, Washington played the central role in leading Ukraine down the path to destruction. Now, he mentioned Crimea. I mentioned what a strategic asset the Russians feel about Crimea and their low weather naval base in Sevastopol. There was no way that any Russian leader was going to let that fall into NATO hands. A month after Russia annexed Crimea, Putin said in a major speech, quote, we were worried about NATO expanding into Ukraine, but we were even more worried. His words, even more important, what was the prospect of NATO putting missiles in Ukraine, putting missiles in Crimea. That's why we, that's as much, that is even more important reason why we annexed Crimea, mind you, than our worry about NATO assimilating, assimilating Ukraine. So where does it leave us? Well, Mirsham also says that the silver lining that people talk about, the relations among countries in the West, I mean, my very idea, and the lowly white West have never, they haven't been closer, they've improved because of the Ukraine war. Well, well, we have a Spanish parliamentarian saying yesterday, and I'll read just one little sentence from him. His name is Gerardo Pizzarello. He said NATO, the summit, the summit of NATO was organized, quote, to establish the weapons trade and to reinforce the geostrategic priorities of the United States, including China. He condemned, quote, US vassalage, in quote, calling for a new autonomous European security model. Wow. So fishers, Mirsham said there are fishers that are bound to appear in other places, particularly as it starts to get colder this fall. And here we have a Spanish parliamentarian already saying, this was a real crock that this NATO was just pushing for war on China and to enrich weapons companies. Now, there is a lot of ideological garbage about Russia really being just as bad as the Soviet Union after the Soviet Union imploded that Russia still wants to take over Europe and maybe the rest of the world. As I say, the Giuliani dictum does not apply or should not apply in these conversations. We have lots of theories, but no evidence for that. All right. So we have evidence for, of course, is one reason, and it's a major reason who profits Cui Bono from this kind of thing. And it's the Mickey mat, and I'll spell it out. The military industrial congressional intelligence media, academia, think tank complex. Now, why do I say me as if in all caps? Well, because the media is the linchpin. It's owned by the rest of the Mickey mat. You can't get the straight word from the media. That's why it's up to us. According to it, Martin Luther King and Julian Assange have said, we have to spread some truth around. Here's an example. The AAE systems. That's the new, the US affiliate of the biggest arms manufacturer in Europe, British. They're sending $300 million worth of M777 howitzers. That's like the old 155 howitzers that I trained on a lot, a lot of years ago. But M77 are much more accurate, as you could imagine. These are howitzers. And it's described in this, well, it's a lobbying triumph, a lobbying triumph for BAE. Now, just to give you an idea of how sinister this whole thing is. I just learned that Gina Haspel, who became director of the CIA, was one of her distinguishing characteristics, of course, was heading up the first CIA black site in Thailand, where people were border bordered and subjected to other kinds of really bad torture. Well, we know that she was there now that has come out in court documents. And so she became head of the CIA. And now she's being further rewarded by sitting on the board, the board of directors of BAE systems. So what am I saying here? Well, I'm saying that BAE will profit. BAE and Raytheon and Bowling and Lockheed Martin, they'll all profit on this for as long as it takes. Now, would I get for as long as it takes? That's from Joe Biden at the NATO summit saying, we're going to pursue this thing as long as it takes. Are we going to win? That doesn't matter. It's a fur of a war, folks. We're going to go for as long as it takes. Now, Gina, the last thing I'll say is that the head of the National Intelligence Setup, a very bright woman named Avril Haynes, she said recently that actually just last week that the outlook is very grim. Okay. That this conflict in Ukraine is going to last for a prolonged period of time. Okay. Now she doesn't get to decide for as long as it takes. That's the president's decision. But she's making clear that this is a pretty dangerous situation. Grim is the word she used. And of course she mentioned that Russia's reaction is getting more and more dangerous and acrimonious. So we're at a situation now where even the thought of nuclear weapons have not been shunted aside. And it's up to us. You know, it's up to us to keep the flame alive and try to spread some truth around. People asked me, don't you get tired? I mean, hello. Don't you get tired? I mean, you rented an rave tray about there being no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But that was 1980. That was years ago. Don't you get tired? And my favorite little vignette to explain why I don't get tired comes from a good friend of mine. His name was Dave Obi. He was a representative from Wisconsin, Democratic representative. He's head of the appropriations committee. And he didn't like it when the law was being skirted in Iran Contra. And we were doing things that his committee was not a prior stuff. And so he called up Secretary Schultz, Secretary of State Schultz, for whom I have a lot of respect. And he said, now Secretary Schultz, I want to talk to you about why you didn't inform us about giving these arms to Iran. And there was a convoluted scheme if it all works so that we could fund the war in Nicaragua. So it's now, now, what do you say about that? And Schultz uncharacteristically says, Congressman Obi, I think, I think the American people are just tired of all this. They're tired of Iran Contra. And Obi looked down from where he sat. And he said, Secretary Schultz, I didn't swear to support and protect the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic until I got tired. Okay. There are a lot of us that are going to pursue this to the degree we can. Beyond, beyond getting tired. And for those of you who would like to have references to the people that I think are really good experts in various fields. Let me show you the next slide, which gives that kind of roundup. I mentioned John Miersheimer already. He is the best. He's very blatant and very courageous. He's got a step with everyone. He has to give lectures on Florence, Italy, Berlin, Germany. He can't get a hearing here in the United States, even though one of his lectures very early on blaming the West for this, this Ukraine thing has gotten, I think about 15 million, like million with an M hits. Another person is Norman Solomon. He's more like a journalist, he makes a lot of sense. And he addresses together with Dan Ellsberg, the nuclear aspect of this thing. As for military, you can't do better than Ted Postal. MIT Professor Emeritus of Physics, former chief advisor to the chief of naval operations. He's great, not only on strategic arms and the mutual threat, the mutual balance or imbalance, but also on intermediate range nuclear weapons. Scott Ritter, my colleague in veteran intelligence, professionals for sanity, with whom I often speak on programs like this. Doug McGregor is a colonel from West Point, that should have, should be a general now, should be running thing. But, you know, people of the caliber of Doug McGregor don't usually make general, for reasons we can go into in my next, next talk. Legal Richard Faulk, or you can't be Richard Faulk, Bruce Fine, a more conservative bench is another person, economic, good friend. Well, you know, anyone, but the economic advisors that have led Europe and led the US into a situation which is really going to bite us just within the next couple of months and lead to, by virtue of these, the spring child of sanctions, lead into real trouble. Now last, but not least, my son who is my webmaster says, dad, if you don't mention our website, you are in trouble deep. He does a lot of work on my website, on which I put not only talks like this, but things that I write and that when I'm interviewed and whatever. So that's, I would like to sign off now. I'd ask you to stay true to, to the truth, to pursue it in all ways and to try to appreciate where Russia is coming from, as well as kind of cut through the, the heavy slice of propaganda that we get from the media, which I'll just finish with this, the media, which is part of the military, industrial, congressional, intelligence, media, academia, think tank complex. Thank you very much.