Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel in the United States Army, breaks his silence to condemn America's endless, unjust wars—especially the devastating Iraq War and the looming threat of war with Iran. He urges Americans to reclaim their constitutional power, reject foreign entanglements, and invest in their own nation instead of sacrificing lives and prosperity for the ambitions of others. This is a powerful call to choose peace, dignity, and America first—before it's too late.
Douglas Macgregor speech on YouTube
Americans. 34 years ago, it was my honor and privilege to lead American soldiers to victory in battle, to witness the courage and valor of American soldiers at a time and a place when death was all around us. Fortunately, we sustained very few casualties. However, in the years that followed, I watched many of the soldiers I served with pass on. Not on foreign battlefields, but on American soil, frequently forgotten by the nation they served. In one case, a major who served with me as a lieutenant in 1993 committed suicide. The memories of the friends he lost in Iraq during a pointless, self-defeating occupation after 2003 were more than he could bear. Yet, who today remembers the Iraq war that began in 2003? Or that the American military intervention was justified on the utterly false grounds that WMD, that is, Weapons of Mass Destruction, were being built inside Iraq. The conflict took the lives of nearly 4,500 Americans in uniform, not including contractors, of course, and cost 2 trillion dollars. At least 800,000 Iraqi citizens were internally displaced and several hundred thousand Iraqi citizens lost their lives.
Tonight, I break my silence. Not just for the young officer that committed suicide, but for the wives, husbands, children, and parents who endured the crushing grief of loss, who received a folded flag and were left alone to trace the name of a loved one on a cold gravestone. War is a predator. It consumes our best, our strength, and our resources. But its most terrible damage is often unseen. War also forces Americans to embrace brutality, to justify barbarism, to become something harder, colder, less humane. President Trump promised to stop the endless wars. Now he really needs to do it. Americans currently stand at what Lincoln would call the fiery trial through which we pass. war with Iran or peace for America. The choice will echo through generations. We're very fortunate: The Iranians are willing to talk to us again, and perhaps we can reach a solution. But there are no guarantees. That will take leadership from the highest levels, from President Trump.
Let me speak plainly about what awaits if Washington chooses war with Iran. Within hours of the first strike, Iran will seal the straight of Hormuz, choking the artery through which one fifth of the world's oil flows. Gas prices will not merely rise. They may erupt like a volcano burning through family budgets. The economic security Americans built with their own hands since the pandemic disaster could be wrecked. Immediate price increases and loss of supplies could also result. Yet the cost and treasure stands as nothing before the cost in blood. Iran is not the Iraq of our past wars. Iran consists of 85 million people, fortified by mountains when the Roman Empire was young, defended by modern weapons and effectively allied with nuclear armed powers Russia and China that have drawn clear and unambiguous red lines. For the first time since missiles stood in Cuba, we face not only the shadow, but the real substance of nuclear confrontation. Not for our country, but for the regional ambitions of a foreign state 7,000 miles from home. We must face the truth that weaker allies often attempt to make their wars our wars. While we assist allies, America's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines should not be sacrificed for territorial expansions that serve no vital American strategic interest. I did not witness war through the PowerPoint slides or sanitized screens and situation rooms, but through bloody fog of war. I tell you with the full authority of my battlefield experience, this war, if it comes with Iran, is not necessary. This war is also not just. This war is not worthy of America. We must not sacrifice American lives on foreign soil while American soil thirsts for our attention. We must not trade American prosperity for another state's regional hegemony while American prosperity deteriorates. We must not abandon America's democratic principles for imperial ambition. While those principles, our best hope for justice fade for lack of devotion. The true strength of America has never been measured by regimes toppled, but by lives improved. While we secure the borders of other people's states, our communities crumble. While we send billions abroad, Americans must choose between medicine or food. This is not America first. This is America last. Imagine instead what we might create at home with the trillions this war will cost. Hospitals in rural areas where mothers drive hours to deliver. High-speed rail connecting our cities like steel arteries pulsing with the lifeblood of commerce. Clean energy systems harnessing the same sun that warned Washington and Valley Forge. Schools where every child from Appalachia to the inner city receives education worthy of our republic.
The Constitution placed the power to decide for peace or war in your hands. Between now and midnight, you should contact your representatives and senators with one message: No war with Iran. Put America first. Make their phones ring until they cannot ignore the righteous thunder of a republic reclaiming its constitutional inheritance. Washington can choose diplomacy over war in its pursuit of a solution. There are many approaches that have yet to be considered.
As Lincoln reminded us, ours is a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Let us be the American generation that broke the chain of endless pointless war. That faced the fierce urgency of peace with the same resolve with which we face the necessity of war. Let us choose the courage of peace over the delusion of unnecessary conflict. Let us choose the wisdom of restraint over the recklessness of pride. Wars occur when vanity and self-delusion lead to the wrong choice. And if we make the right choice, generations of Americans yet to be born will look back and say: "Here stood Americans who remembered their oath, who honored their constitution, who chose the republic over the empire, and who in doing so saved the last best hope on earth. Thank you for listening. God bless you and may God bless the United States of America.
What do I think?
Iran has been defending its people against the colonial powers for many decades now, especially the Israeli-backed fundamentalist terrorists like ISIS and Taliban.
In the past couple of years, Iran has responded twice to the three Israeli illegal attacks on Iranian soil, but it was Iran who decided to postpone the 3rd round of retaliation when the US reached out to negotiate, and ever since, unlike Israel who wants war, Iran continues the negotiations as it cares about the safety of the world and people who live in the Middle East.
Iran wants peace and has always wanted peace for the whole region, that's why it helped Iraq and Syria, with their official request, to fight back against IS1S and Jolani, who now celebrate with German and French officials!!! (shame on those Western/NATO countries that support t3rrorism)
Israel has always wanted killings, war, and war.
Israel wants more people to die.
It is Israel that was founded based on the hate-based extremist genocidal supremest ideology.
Israel only exists on the blood of innocent people whom the IDF is brutally killing.
The question is: The US also want an endless war with Iran? A war that can potentially trigger WWIII? How many politicians are independent of AIPAC in the US, and how much of the US policies are being dictated by an extremist warmonger named Netanyahu. Time will show...
