"U.S. Considers Supplying Arms to Ukraine Forces, Officials Say" - TTG

WASHINGTON — With Russian-backed separatists pressing their attacks in Ukraine, NATO’s military commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, now supports providing defensive weapons and equipment to Kiev’s beleaguered forces, and an array of administration and military officials appear to be edging toward that position, American officials said Sunday.

President Obama has made no decisions on providing such lethal assistance. But after a series of striking reversals that Ukraine’s forces have suffered in recent weeks, the Obama administration is taking a fresh look at the question of military aid. Secretary of State John Kerry, who plans to visit Kiev on Thursday, is open to new discussions about providing lethal assistance, as is Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, officials said. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who is leaving his post soon, backs sending defensive weapons to the Ukrainian forces. In recent months, Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, has resisted proposals to provide lethal assistance, several officials said. But one official who is familiar with her views insisted that Ms. Rice was now prepared to reconsider the issue.  (NY Times)

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Shaved apes! My old mentor, MSG Albert H. Rivers, told me all these politicians and generals could easily be replaced by shaved apes. Take a few grey rock apes out of the zoo, shave 'em and put 'em in suits. You'd never know the difference.

The NYT reporters leave the impression that, according to anonymous officials, all the government officials and military leaders mentioned are leaning towards providing arms to the Kiev junta. Breedlove, Kerry and Rice - yeah, I can see it. But General Dempsey? Say it ain't so!  An NBC article suggests the Pentagon is not that keen on the idea. "The Pentagon is reviewing the question "cautiously," one official said. There is concern that providing heavy weapons to Ukraine would only escalate the fighting and increase instability. For that reason, "As of now no one here is pounding the table to provide heavy weapons," the official said." I hope the Pentagon retains its caution and well founded misgivings.

There are no shortage of shaved apes cheerleading for jumping into the war in Ukraine with both feet.  Several "think tanks" just put out a paper entitled "Preserving Ukraine's Independence, Resisting Russian Aggression: What the United States and NATO Must Do." Good Lord, the title alone conjures up images of a troop of howler monkeys flinging their poop from the tree branches. Among the points made in this report is that one of the rebel advantages is air superiority since they "have denied Ukrainian forces the ability to attack, collect intelligence, maneuver and resupply their forces in Ukraine's sovereign airspace." The report calls for equipping the Ukrainians with counter battery radars and medium range/medium altitude UAVs and armored humvees.  The Ukies already have counter battery radars and UAVs. I seriously doubt armored humvees are up to the muddy steppes.

The Ukies may have already received heavy weapons from NATO countries. I'm not talking about the small arms and artillery ammo. This video suggests they are using M-109 Paladin SP artillery systems. When did they come from? No matter. The Ukie forces are close to moral collapse. Their leadership is inferior at all levels. The conscripts are beginning to desert and cross over to the rebel side. Regular Ukrainian army units are fighting the Svoboda and Pravy Sektor filled national guard units. The Aidar Battalion is in Kiev calling for Poroshenko's head. All the humvees in the world aren't going to fix that.

Our best bet is to suck it up. Accept that Sevastopol will never become NATO's Subic Bay on the Black Sea. Don't listen to the shaved apes and walk away from World War III.

TTG 

Comments

[anna-marina]

The hand of DC:
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2015/02/about-us-weapons-deliveries-and.html
The papers is leaving no illusion that the US army is used as a mercenary for the welfare of financiers and war manufacturers

[Castellio]

Robert Parry on Ukraine: https://consortiumnews.com/2015/02/06/nuclear-war-and-clashing-ukraine-narratives/

[Poul]

I think this qualifies as state-owned.

So IMHO, LeaNder, it's just sensible to be caution when one part in a conflict comments on the actions of their opponents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_%28news_agency%29

Quote:
"Sputnik is an international multimedia news service launched on 10 November 2014 by the Russian Federation owned and operated agency, Rossiya segodnya. Sputnik replaces the RIA Novosti news agency and the Voice of Russia international radio broadcaster."

[LeaNder]

thomas, I realize by now it's true. ....

Apparently earlier reports on it had better then the official channels. The site I liked to may be a bit behind time. could have been introduced in January and they don't give their foreign readers much detail:

http://rada.gov.ua/en/news/News/News/102112.html

[LeaNder]

Newsweek:
http://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-passes-law-shoot-deserters-304911

Deserters can be shot. The Nazis managed to keep up discipline with this "disciplinarian tool" ...

Maybe that's why it is hard to believe it could happen again today.

[LeaNder]

Thanks, Poul, which I guess Thomas would object to that by stating that it ultimately does not matter where the news comes from. ...

I wouldn't be surprised though, if an initially cultural, economic, ethnic issue was dealt here by means of war.

No doubt one side has high profile support in the US, e.g. bomb, bomb, bomb Iran McCain. But unfortunately he is only the peek of the iceberg. While the other side is more and more sidelined with the usual stick method that seems to often be be prelude to war. The usual strategy?

I have to give this up for a while. My mother needs my help ... the best to the SST committee.

[LeaNder]

Ok, William, it took me some time to get back into here. Meaning having a grasp on people around. In your case not too long.

I am pretty sure you realize we cannot ever become "spiritual friends" by now.

But may I tell you a private anecdote on Merkel?

I met Merkel not on the news or on TV, before she was chancellor. I was hesitant about her politically, since at that point in time, although only recently recruited to vote at all by a friend, she was in charge of a ministry about whose (?) politics I was deeply suspicious. The person that made me vote was a rigid leftist, at one point he even called me a fascist.

I met Merkel as a guest speaker of the Association of German female enterpreneurs:

Maybe the national branch of this:
http://femaleentrepreneurassociation.com/

I only remember I had no chance at all to convince my immediate co-workers in the tiny little bureau in Cologne to take the Internet seriously. Apart from what I remember as incompetent and prejudiced coworkers their own intrigues and what may well have been an intrigue on a higher level I couldn't tell you ... No idea, in any case I at one point, I was working for the firm not longer then three month, I decided to inform the former managing director, at the only time the office was restful meaning after work, a lawyer, that things seemed to be heading towards a serious problem. She had handled matters from afar but also was seriously semi-informed.

But what I will never forget is a not so important matter. I was in charge with working on the monthly magazine. I hadn't really never ever witnessed Merkel personally. But I will never ever forget the stark contrast of images I had seen of her before and the image of her that was published in the magazine. Or the image the photographer took of her during her speech. It was the image of a completely different person from any images I had seen before. ... On the visual level.

You can consider that image the origin of my hesitation about Merkel's public image. And yes, my soul is in the arts and not in politics or anything else you are trying to convince me to embrace. I have no idea, but post 911 I wondered if there could be a deeper ethical layer beneath "aesthetics" or the arts for me and that layer could be ethical.

In any case

[LeaNder]

ok, one last note, Charles I, I hate the idea of discriminating plants, and the "war on drugs" got me into the larger "war on terrorism". Easy to use, isn't it?

But yes I realize by now that "recreational" drugs, or our Western alcohol may not confirm with "the Arabs" religious restrictions in that context. Obviously. Thus there also is a West-East religious frontier beyond American prohibition.

By the way, I realized you are something I use to call "spiritual friend" internet-wise, after all we are not able to meet. And does it really matter? Just as I am not able to meet Shakespeare personally. Or ask him what his first commonly assumed play had to do with his own contemporary legal frontiers. Or how he choosed to play with these legal frontiers In any case he sent me into research that was only possible in the grandiose architectural, no idea but may be part of the experience, design of the German state library in Berlin:
http://staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/en/

One of our most famous scholars once received a mail from my, he never answered. He had publicly stated something really stupid about the play. Obviously he hadn't even cared to even read it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Gentlemen_of_Verona

[different clue]

William R. Cumming,

Any Russian, whether leader or inhabitant, hearing that phrase "West of the Urals", would view it as being in line with Brzezhinski's desire to break Russia into pieces, and would view anyone using that phrase with extreme hostility.

[Charles I]

Not to worry it comes down to the usual suspects hubris and ignorance, but the consequences may be cataclysmic nonetheless. Poor Saker sees a clash of Truth and Lies is at hand and writes most despairingly about it today before finishing his two-parter on the latest peace talks.

"Dishonesty, intellectual and moral, has been elevated to an ontological principle and foundation of the modern western political thought and culture, it is what these societies do best and all they can do. Not only are "right and wrong" gone in a moral sense, they are now also gone in a logical sense. Something both deeply immoral and completely absurd can now be elevated to an axiomatic status and then be used as "the measure of all things".

Yet again and again, I come to the conclusion that what we are seeing here is truly a deep civilizational clash between two civilizational realm who have grown so far apart as to make them virtual extraterrestrial aliens to each other. Lavrov would have had a much better experience speaking to some little green men on another Galaxy, these the people he addressed today in Munich.

I am going to say something which will trigger the usual spike in hate mail and outraged comments, but what I see today is struggle very similar to the one which opposed the Pharisees and Christ 2000 years ago. You could also refer to it as a struggle between "Conchita Wurst vs Saint George". Or "Hizb Shaitan vs Hizb Allah". These are all metaphors for the same reality. And since what is at stake today is really the future of the entire international order you can say that we are living one of the most dangerous and crucial moment in history.

I don't see how this conflict could be resolved by negotiations. On a short-term, tactical level, yes, sure. But fundamentally this is an existential struggle for both sides and only one will be left standing. We might well have reached the kind of historical nexus which will determine the future (or lack thereof) of the entire human race. This is the conclusion I have personally come to."

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/listening-to-lavrov-in-munich.html

As to the talks themselves imho he delivers a tour de force emperor-has-no-clothes Realpolitik analysis of the talks and the prospects on the ground that I heartily urge you all to read in full.

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/talks-in-moscow-two-part-analysis.html

I also saw apocalyptic Euraisanist Alexander Dugin, touted as the philosophical wit behind Putin's Ukraine fp touting his new book on the subject on Tvo's The Agenda last night. Fits right in with Saker's despairing take. He's convinced that with MittelEurope's help, freedom is at hand, quite a character.

http://www.themontrealreview.com/letters/weekly-review/Aleksandr-Dugin-The-Prophet-of-the-New-Russian-Empire.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Dugin

Duginv tried to lay it all out for Americans, in historical, political and moral contexts here:

http://openrevolt.info/2014/03/08/alexander-dugin-letter-to-the-american-people-on-ukraine/

[Charles I]

You want clashing narratives, you must go and read 2 Saker posts today;

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/listening-to-lavrov-in-munich.html

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/talks-in-moscow-two-part-analysis.html

[Castellio]

Maybe Merkel will have me eating my words, at least on Germany's reaction the the US arming of Ukraine. I sincerely hope so.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/07/munich-conference-us-hawks-press-military-escalation-towards-russia

[Castellio]

And does aesthetics actually rely on ethics?

Not just the golden mean and all that....

If you say yes, I would agree.

[FB Ali]

Not really. To wake up now to something that should have been staring her in the face months ago, that's not very bright.

The Saker has an interesting post today on the Kremlin meeting.

[Castellio]

I imagine TTG may be evaluating this already, but if not, the comments of Nikolai Azarov, former Prime Minister of Ukraine (2010-14) are worth considering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v033nO-51I

[The Twisted Genius]

Castiello,

I generally agree with Azarov's account of recent Ukrainian history and his idea that Ukraine should have continued to push for a relationship bridging the EU and Russia. I think Russia would have been content with a neutral Ukraine. IMO the EU and NATO were not content with a neutral Ukraine. Thus the present mess.

I think the Baltic Nations should have pursued a position of neutrality as well. I would never expect them to embrace Russia so soon after gaining their independence from the USSR, but their total embrace of NATO protection and EU integration ignored the reality of economic dependence on trade with Russia. Perhaps years from now, if the Kiev junta falls, there can be a "block" of neutrality from Ukraine to Novorossiya to the Baltics and Finland. Would Belarus be interested?

[The Twisted Genius]

Castiello,

One thing that Azarov left out was the many years of rampant corruption in Ukrainian business and political circles.

[William R. Cumming]

Is it accurate that the U.S. has announced stationing armor units in the Baltics, Poland, and Rumania?

[The Twisted Genius]

WRC,

There is an armored battalion set of equipment in Europe now. That will be increased to a brigade set in the next two years. NATO is set to establish a Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VHRJTF) also in the next two years. I don't know what the U.S. contribution will be, but it will probably be substantial. We have also upped our participation in joint exercises with Baltic and Polish militaries. As you know, we will be training four Ukrainian National Guard companies in Ukraine next year.

[Ken Roberts]

Thanks for that link to Dugin "open letter". It is good perspective. Always good to hear viewpoint of others who are trying to communicate honestly and sanely. I thought his conceptualization of the US policy formulation process a bit simplistic, but so things may look from afar. Like one of those trick pictures, in which a view from afar shows something else! Best wishes to all.

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks! And as you may have surmised Russia east of the URALS may be the locus of non-Russian interests as well as the Arctic the rest of this century.

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks TTG! How about air defenses?

[William R. Cumming]

Now appears VP Biden onside of Arming the Ukraine!

And in the meantime looks as if France and Germany [both opposed to arming the Ukraine] appear to have consented to widening of operations in Eastern Ukraine for the "rebels"!

[William R. Cumming]

Seems clearer than ever that the 52 nation-states of Europe cannot sustain PEACE and PROSPERITY! Perhaps neither?

[Charles I]

View depends where you sit.