NATO is Already at War in Ukraine… and it is Losing

By Finian Cunningham

February 05, 2015 "ICH" - "SCF"- In yet another sleight of hand, Western news media are this week spinning the notion that the US and NATO are «considering sending lethal military aid» in order «to defend» the Kiev regime from «Russian aggression».

That’s a pathetic joke. The real explanation is that NATO is losing its war in Ukraine and needs to send more military fuel in order to salvage the mounting losses.

First, the Western media slyly acknowledge that US-led NATO has so far «only dispatched non-lethal military equipment». That rhetorical ruse is used to pretend that non-lethal material is somehow not really military grade. But whether non-lethal or lethal, military equipment is military equipment. So, let’s just dispense with that bunch of semantics. The US and its public-relations alter-ego, NATO, are already deeply involved militarily in Ukraine, supporting the Kiev regime whose 10-month offensive on eastern Ukraine has resulted in over 5,300 deaths.

Secondly, the notion that Washington is «reconsidering» whether to send «lethal aid», as reported in the New York Times on Monday, is another risible illusion. The US and its NATO allies are already sending lethal military equipment to the Ukraine. US President Obama said this week that «pouring more weapons into Ukraine» will not resolve the conflict. While German Chancellor Angela Merkel also vowed that Germany would not be supplying weapons to the Kiev regime, adding that the conflict cannot be solved by military means. Both Obama and Merkel are either woefully deceptive or living in cloud-cuckoo land. Probably both.

Let’s cut to the chase. NATO is at war in Ukraine and has been so for the past year, if not covertly for the past two decades. 

Wayne Madsen in his SCF column this week provides detailed evidence that a giant military transport plane, a Ukrainian Antonov AN124, has been tracked while flying weapons from the US and several NATO countries into Kiev for at least the past four months. The transporter plane – the world’s biggest such aircraft – has been spotted carrying out cargo runs in the US, Norway, Italy and Romania on a secret mission to funnel heavy weapons to the Kiev regime.

Prior to that, the Russian government has claimed that US mercenaries, possibly belonging to Pentagon security contract firm, Blackwater/Academi, have been recorded operating inside Ukraine alongside Kiev’s military units, including the Nazi SS-styled National Guard.   

This week, a senior spokesman for the self-declared Lugansk People’s Republic, Alexei Karyakin, said that NATO munitions have been recovered from various battle zones. «Fragments recovered from munitions bear NATO marks… Now NATO is killing our countrymen», said Karyakin.

Earlier this month, when pro-Russian self-defence militia retook the Donetsk International Airport from Kiev forces, who had been using the facility to shell Donetsk City for the past several months, it was reported that among the charred remains were NATO manuals in several European languages and other items identified as NATO-standard equipment.

At the end of last year, the US Congress passed the Ukraine Freedom Support Act, which mandates the supply of $350 million in lethal and non-lethal aid to the Kiev regime. The Obama administration maintains the fiction that it has not yet acted on the «non-lethal» provisions in the Act, but that is stretching credulity to breaking point.

The notion that Washington and its NATO allies, including Britain, the Baltic states and Poland, are now – only now – mulling the possibility of furnishing lethal material to the Kiev regime is simply laughable. 

Indeed, according to reliable reports, the neo-Nazi paramilitary Right Sector shock-troops that were used to incite the lethal Maidan protests in November 2013, which eventually led to the coup against the Yanukovych government in February last year, had spent months in preparation at military camps in Poland, learning the techniques of subversion and terrorism. NATO member Poland and the American CIA were thus instrumental in supplying the «dogs of war» that precipitated the regime-change crisis and the ongoing civil war.

We can go further back to the CIA-inspired «colour revolution» of 2004, or even as far back as 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the US began infiltrating Ukraine with $5 billion to foment «civil society groups». That is a euphemism for the USAID, CIA, George Soros umbrella of destabilising agents. We have knowledge of the $5 billion fund courtesy of the clumsy admission from neocon State Department siren Victoria Nuland, who actually bragged about the fact during the Maidan Square protests at the end of 2013. This week, Nuland’s minion at the State Department Jan Psaki again disclosed to reporters that the US has long been involved in «working with the Ukrainian opposition» to ensure the country was «on track» for «transition». 

The interesting question is the timing of the latest supposed musings about «lethal» support. The New York Times, cites top influential present and former officials who are now advocating the sending of such military equipment. They include Secretary of State John Kerry, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, NATO military commander General Philip Breedlove and his predecessor Admiral James Stravidis. Other luminaries are members of the Brookings Institute and the Atlantic Council. These think-tanks recommend the White House supply $3 billion in military aid to the Kiev regime over the next three years – 10 times what the gung-ho Republican-controlled Congress mandates.

The CIA-linked Radio Free Europe news outlet «explains» that the debate on ramping up military aid to the Kiev regime has «intensified» because: «The Ukrainian government [Kiev regime] has suffered significant military setbacks in recent weeks as it has become increasingly clear that the ceasefire is not working». 

In other words, the Western-backed junta is losing the war – in spite of already having NATO military support and in spite of the pseudo ceasefire to re-group offensive forces. 

Also, the New York Times added a further factor for why Washington is now stepping up the military agenda, namely, that US and EU economic sanctions imposed on Russia «have not dissuaded» the government of President Vladimir Putin. Or as US State Department spokeswoman Jan Psaki would say, Russia has «not changed its behaviour» –  that is, has not capitulated to Western demands to adopt a servile role to comply with Washington’s hegemonic global ambitions.  

Washington and its European vassals are thus realising that their nefarious scheme for regime change in Ukraine is in danger of hitting a dead-end crash. Washington is therefore now trying to salvage its disastrous gambit to subjugate Ukraine, and by extension Russia, by escalating the military stakes.

But Washington can’t very well escalate its military involvement openly for invidious political reasons, both domestically and internationally. Washington has to be careful not to divulge too openly that it is already militarily involved in Ukraine, along with its NATO gang members. 

Therefore, Washington is seeking to portray the situation as one of «defending» an EU-seeking, democracy-loving Kiev that is pitted against superior Russian-backed proxy insurgents. Hence the US officials and their trusty Western media mouthpieces are emphasising a faux ambivalence in «considering» supplying «lethal defensive military aid». 

The tortuous language and reasoning reflects the systematic lies that Washington and NATO have been telling for months over the Ukraine conflict. 

The plain truth is that US-led NATO is up to its eyes in fuelling the Ukraine war, and it is losing the war it launched in the first place. That’s why Washington is now desperately performing all sorts of rhetorical gymnastics to deceive the Western public into acquiescing to a major military escalation of its war under the guise of supplying «defensive lethal weapons».

© Strategic Culture Foundation