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Judith Miller and US Air Force General Philip Breedlove are back! At first I thought it a sickening flashback. Two nights ago, there were Judy Miller and former NATO Commander Philip Breedlove on TV pontificating on Ukraine.
For younger readers, Judy was the NY Times Archdeacon blessing all those reports of "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (that weren't there) and ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda (that weren't there either).
As for Breedlove, as a sad sign of the times, he appears (via Radio Free Europe) on Reader Supporter News, with zero allusion to his pedigree on truth and falsehood (See: "FOCUS: Former NATO Commander Says Western Fears of Nuclear War Are Preventing a Proper Response to Putin.")
Breedlove's all-too-familiar, damn-the-torpedoes line on the need to confront Russia head-on in Ukraine brought back more sickening memories. For this is precisely what he tried to do - behind President Obama's back - when he was commander of NATO troops (2013-2016). It got so bad that we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) sought to warn German Chancellor Angela Merkel about Breedlove's checkered record for credibility in advance of a NATO summit in early July, 2014. We urged Merkel to temper Breedlove's distemper.
Verbatim excerpts are below
"We longtime U.S. intelligence officers again wish to convey our concerns and cautions directly to you prior to a critically important NATO summit - the meeting that begins on July 8 in Warsaw. We were gratified to learn that our referenced memorandum reached you and your advisers before the NATO summit in Wales and that others too learned of our initiative via the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which published a full report on our memorandum on Sept. 4, the day that summit began.
Wales to Warsaw
"The Warsaw summit is likely to be at least as important as the last one in Wales and is likely to have even more far-reaching consequences. We find troubling - if not surprising - NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's statement at a pre-summit press event on July 4 that NATO members will agree to "further enhance NATO's military presence in the eastern part of the alliance," adding that the alliance will see it's "biggest reinforcement since the Cold War."
"The likelihood of a military clash in the air or at sea - accidental or intentional - has grown sharply, the more so since, as we explain below, President Obama's control over top US/NATO generals, some of whom like to play cowboy, is tenuous. Accordingly we encourage you, as we did before the last NATO summit, to urge your NATO colleagues to bring a "degree of judicious skepticism" to the table at Warsaw - especially with regard to the perceived threat from Russia.
"Many of us have spent decades studying Moscow's foreign policy. We shake our heads in disbelief when we see Western leaders seemingly oblivious to what it means to the Russians to witness exercises on a scale not seen since Hitler's armies launched "Unternehmen Barbarossa" 75 years ago, leaving 25 million Soviet citizens dead. In our view, it is irresponsibly foolish to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not take countermeasures - at a time and place of his own choosing.
"Putin does not have the option of trying to reassure his generals that what they hear and see from NATO is mere rhetoric and posturing. He is already facing increased pressure to react in an unmistakably forceful way. In sum, Russia is bound to react strongly to what it regards as the unwarranted provocation of large military exercises along its western borders, including in Ukraine.
"Before things get still worse, seasoned NATO leaders need to demonstrate a clear preference for statesmanship and give-and-take diplomacy over saber-rattling. Otherwise, some kind of military clash with Russia is likely, with the ever-present danger of escalation to a nuclear exchange.
"Extremely worrisome is the fact that many second-generation NATO leaders seem blithely unaware - or even dismissive - of that looming possibility. Demagoguery like that coming from former Polish President Lech Walesa, who brags that he would "shoot" at Russian jets that buzz US destroyers assuredly are not at all helpful. Walesa's tone, however, does reflect the macho attitude prevailing today in Poland and some other NATO newcomers.
"We believe Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was correct to point out that military posturing on Russia's borders will bring less regional security. We applaud his admonition that, "We are well advised not to create pretexts to renew an old confrontation."
A Need For Candor
"Speaking of "pretexts to renew an old confrontation," we believe the time has come to acknowledge that the marked increase in East-West tensions over the past two years originally stemmed from the Western-sponsored coup d'e'tat in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, and Russia's reaction in annexing Crimea.
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