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NATO promises to keep expanding, despite Russian objections
16 Dec, 2021 19:57
Latvia, December 1, 2021. © REUTERS / Ints Kalnins
NATO expansion will continue whether Russia likes it or not, the US led bloc's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has declared, insisting that despite Moscow’s objections, his organisation does not pose a threat.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Stoltenberg addressed the possibility of Ukrainian membership, an outcome that Kiev has pushed for, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has described as a “red line.”
The ex-Norwegian prime minister said that whether Ukraine joins NATO is up to the bloc’s member states and its leadership, and that Moscow shouldn’t have input into the decision. He also emphasized that NATO is already supporting the eastern European nation militarily.
“NATO countries are already training Ukrainian troops and consulting with them,” he explained. “They are conducting joint exercises and providing military supplies and technology. The alliance’s support for Ukraine is not a threat to Russia.”
So, he's saying we are preparing Ukraine for war against Russia, but we are no threat to Russia. What kind of absurdity is that?
Stoltenberg added that a possible partnership with Ukraine would be the chief item on the agenda at the upcoming NATO summit in Madrid in June 2022. On the subject of whether the bloc would keep growing, he said, “NATO is continuing the process of expansion. We already took Montenegro and North Macedonia, regardless of Russia’s protests.” He promised that NATO would not look to compromise with Moscow, which has demanded that the bloc rethink a promise it made in 2008 to induct Ukraine and Georgia “in time.”
The official insisted that he wants to have a substantive dialogue with Russia. The Kremlin, however, has said that this has been practically impossible since NATO expelled a group of Russian diplomats from Brussels in October, effectively closing Moscow’s permanent mission with the alliance.
So, he says NATO would not look to compromise with Russia, but he wants substantive dialogue with them, while he expels anyone with whom he might have dialogue. George Orwell would be so proud of him.
Following a virtual meeting with Putin earlier this month, US President Joe Biden called for talks to ease tensions between NATO and Russia. Bloomberg reported that several eastern European members of the bloc were uneasy with Biden’s proposal, fearing that the American leader was prepared to make concessions that would put “curbs on NATO’s freedom of movement,” in the words of one anonymous diplomat, it quoted.
'One anonymous diplomat' representing Deep State, of course.
NYT investigation reveals ‘hundreds’ of civilian deaths
uncounted in US strikes
19 Dec, 2021 04:34
An investigation by the New York Times has found that the Pentagon severely downplayed the civilian death toll from its “precision” strikes in Syria and Iraq, while failing to investigate reports of potential civilian casualties.
The New York Times investigation, the first part of which was released on Monday, draws on over 1,311 casualty assessment reports that were previously kept under wraps by the Pentagon. Having reviewed the files and visited “nearly 100 casualties sites” in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, the Times reported that the US military often dismissed reports of civilian casualties as non-credible, despite failing to visit the sites or speak to the witnesses.
The Times revealed that in 216 instances in which the Pentagon found reports of civilian casualties credible, its investigators visited the actual site of the bombing in only one case. None of the investigations resulted in any penalties for those responsible for the strikes, and only one “possible violation” in mapping out a strike was identified by the Pentagon.
The Times investigation also revealed that trigger-happy US troops tended to rely on “incorrect or incomplete” intelligence to hit terrorist targets, sometimes killing dozens of civilians instead. Confirmation bias was said to play a role in troops interpreting scant intelligence in a way that affirms their “pre-existing beliefs” about the targets.
For instance, during a strike in Iraq in 2015, US forces killed a child after identifying him as “an unknown heavy object” who was being “dragged” to a supposed Islamic State position by an alleged militant.
Sloppy targeting practices resulted in around 120 Syrian villagers dying in a US strike on July 19, 2016, according to the investigation. At the time of the strike, the Pentagon apparently thought that 85 militants were killed in the bombing instead, even though it took place “far from the front line.” In another botched strike, a warplane killed an entire family escaping West Mosul in 2017, mistaking the civilian vehicle with two children for a car bomb.
Even in instances in which the US acknowledged civilian casualties, it was not in a hurry to pay compensation to the victims, with the Times reporting that “fewer than a dozen condolence payments were made.”
The Times points out that the multiple lapses in the US air campaign cannot be discounted as “outliers,” but rather represent a common trend in “a sharp contrast to the American government’s image of war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs.”
“Since 2014, the American air war has been plagued by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and imprecise targeting and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children.”
While the Pentagon claims that a total of 1,417 civilians died as result of the US bombing campaigns in Syria and Iraq, and 188 civilians were killed since 2018 in Afghanistan, the Times estimates the civilian death toll to be significantly higher.
“Many allegations of civilian casualties had been summarily discounted, with scant evaluation. And the on-the-ground reporting – involving a sampling of cases dismissed, cases deemed ‘credible’ and, in Afghanistan, cases not included in the trove of Pentagon documents – found hundreds of deaths uncounted.”
And some Americans can't understand why some people don't like them. If the reverse were happening and enemies were dropping bombs on American citizens, there would be hell to pay.
Retired generals warn of ‘lethal chaos’ in US military after 2024 vote
Airs of Turkey or Ukraine in this madness by 3 Generals
20 Dec, 2021 02:24
February 2, 2021. © REUTERS/Brendan Smialowski
Three retired US Army generals have argued that a civil war might break out if the Pentagon does not weed out “potential mutineers,” as there is a high chance of “another insurrection” if Republicans retake the White House.
In a scathing op-ed published in the Washington Post on Friday, retired US Army Major General Paul D. Eaton, retired US Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba, and retired US Brigadier General Steven M. Anderson called on the Pentagon to “war-game the next potential post-election insurrection or coup attempt to identify weak spots.”
Alleging that the US military ranks are brimming with potential mutineers, they demanded the Pentagon “identifies, isolates and removes” them from the force before it’s too late for purges, while pointing to the “disturbing number of veterans and active-duty members of the military” who were involved in the January 6 events at the Capitol.
Assessing “the potential for a military breakdown” as “very real,” the generals wrote that they have been “increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military."
As an example of such “mutiny,” the generals referred to the Oklahoma National Guard’s standoff with the Pentagon over the Covid-19 vaccination mandate, calling it “perhaps [a] more worrying” sign of a brewing military breakdown than members of the military taking part in the Capitol riot. Brigadier General Thomas Mancino openly defied the military vaccination mandate, promising that Oklahoma National Guard members would not be punished if they refused to get the jab despite the Pentagon’s threat to withdraw funding from the force.
The generals appeared to suggest the denigration of the US military might only happen if Republicans claim victory in the next presidential race, seemingly ruling out the possibility that US President Joe Biden won’t be re-elected.
A doomsday scenario, as laid out by the generals, would see “competing commanders in chief — a newly re-elected Biden giving orders, versus Trump (or another Trumpian figure) issuing orders as the head of a shadow government.”
In a contested election, with loyalties split, some might follow orders from the rightful commander in chief, while others might follow the Trumpian loser
The generals also suggested that anti-Biden politicians “at state and federal level” might want to close ranks behind “a losing candidate” in an attempt to install them as president. The resulting chaos may pave the way for a “civil war” which will undermine US security and can be exploited by America’s “enemies” to carry out an “all-out assault” on US assets or that of its allies, the generals warned in their chilling message.
A crowd of supporters of ex-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol on January 6, seeking to block the certification of the 2020 presidential elections results for Democrat Joe Biden. While hundreds have been arrested following the riot, none were charged with inciting “insurrection.” This week, Washington, DC filed a lawsuit against 31 alleged pro-Trump activists for “causing extensive damage to the District.”
Russia promises 'military response' to any further NATO expansion
20 Dec, 2021 15:16
By Layla Guest
FILE PHOTO. © AFP / JOHN THYS
NATO must be aware that pushing further into Eastern Europe, past Moscow’s declared red lines, will make a military response inevitable, a top Russian diplomat has warned, amid escalating tensions with the US-led bloc.
Speaking to Rossiya 24 TV on Monday, Konstantin Gavrilov, the head of the Russian delegation to the Negotiations on Military Security and Arms Control in Vienna said Washington was obliged to engage in a dialogue with Moscow on security guarantees for the sake of peace on the continent, whether officials wanted it or not.
“The conversation must be serious, and everyone in NATO is well aware, despite all the power and strength, that it is necessary to take concrete political actions, otherwise the alternative is a … military response from Russia,” he explained.
Gavrilov’s comments came shortly after Moscow issued two documents, one for NATO and the other for US officials, requesting a wide range of assurances it said were aimed at enhancing the security of all parties.
The proposal to NATO focuses mainly on the movement of personnel and hardware, and includes the requirement that Kiev’s long-held ambition to join the bloc would not be realized. A separate clause calls for the current members to renounce any military activity on the territory of Ukraine, as well as in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia.
In its proposition to Washington, Moscow requested that officials commit to ruling out expansion into former Soviet republics. Concerns over the US-led military bloc’s potential widening into Eastern Europe have been reignited in recent weeks. Speaking via video link earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his US counterpart, Joe Biden, his country was “seriously interested” in getting “reliable and firm legal guarantees” that would prohibit NATO’s expansion further eastwards, as well as the deployment of “offensive strike weapons systems” nearby.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned at the beginning of December that further enlargement of the bloc in the direction of Russia was a red line for Moscow, and that Ukraine’s hopes of joining its ranks were unacceptable. The US was pulling Kiev into the orbit of NATO and turning it into a “bridgehead” of confrontation with Russia, she said, in a move that could destabilize Europe.
Now we will see if NATO and the USA are more afraid of a war with Russia than ticking-off their war-industry oligarchs.
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