{"id":144328,"date":"2015-03-09T21:17:04","date_gmt":"2015-03-09T21:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=144328"},"modified":"2015-03-09T21:17:04","modified_gmt":"2015-03-09T21:17:04","slug":"breedloves-bellicosity-berlin-alarmed-aggressive-nato-stance-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/breedloves-bellicosity-berlin-alarmed-aggressive-nato-stance-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Breedlove\u2019s Bellicosity: Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Top NATO commander General Philip Breedlove has raised hackles in Germany with his public statements about the Ukraine crisis.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>US President Obama supports Chancellor Merkel\u2019s efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. But hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin\u2019s approach. And NATO\u2019s top commander in Europe hasn\u2019t been helping either.<\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm. The battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk cease-fire wasn\u2019t holding perfectly, but it was holding.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>On that same day, General Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, stepped before the press in Washington. Putin, the 59-year-old said, had once again \u201cupped the ante\u201d in eastern Ukraine \u2013 with \u201cwell over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery\u201d having been sent to the Donbass. \u201cWhat is clear,\u201d Breedlove said, \u201cis that right now, it is not getting better. It is getting worse every day.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>German leaders in Berlin were stunned. They didn\u2019t understand what Breedlove was talking about. And it wasn\u2019t the first time. Once again, the German government, supported by intelligence gathered by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany\u2019s foreign intelligence agency, did not share the view of NATO\u2019s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The pattern has become a familiar one. For months, Breedlove has been commenting on Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, speaking of troop advances on the border, the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks. Over and over again, Breedlove\u2019s numbers have been significantly higher than those in the possession of America\u2019s NATO allies in Europe. As such, he is playing directly into the hands of the hardliners in the US Congress and in NATO.<\/div>\n<div>The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/international\/europe\/minsk-deal-represents-and-fragile-opportunity-for-peace-in-ukraine-a-1018326.html\" target=\"_blank\">efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel<\/a>? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove\u2019s comments as \u201cdangerous propaganda.\u201d Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even found it necessary recently to bring up Breedlove\u2019s comments with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.paulcraigroberts.org\/2015\/03\/09\/breedloves-bellicosity-berlin-alarmed-aggressive-nato-stance-ukraine\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Top NATO commander General Philip Breedlove has raised hackles in Germany with his public statements about the Ukraine crisis. US President Obama supports Chancellor Merkel\u2019s efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. But hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin\u2019s approach. And NATO\u2019s top commander in Europe hasn\u2019t been helping either. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":144329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-144328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news","9":"category-war-terrorism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}