NATO Chief Admits: "War Didn't Start In February Last Year, The War Started In 2014"
I'm playing catch up here, having decided at last that I should get serious about Substack
Originally published on Boggart Abroad, 17 February 2023
At last, after a year of war in Ukraine which has been portrayed by political leaders and the mainstream press as an unprovoked assault by mighty Russia on poor little Ukraine but in reality was always a proxy war between NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation,) led by the USA and the Russian Federation, somebody in a position of power in the anti - Russian alliance, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg this week issued made some rather revealing comments on the origins of the war. What Stoltenberg said was at last an admission of the essential truth about this war, but was only something many thousands of us in the alt_news community have been saying since it first became apparent that war between Russia and NATO, with Ukraine serving as a proxy for the NATO powers, was inevitable.
Telling the truth, is of course extremely rare among top Western officials these days, and telling it in simple, unequivocal terms rather than dressing it in ambiguous, weasel words that leave room for 'plausible denial,' is almost unheard of, so we Boggart Bloggers, who have been accused by the Zelensky fan club of blindly supporting Russia, but who have in fact never uttered or typed a word in support of Russia's Special Military Operation, but have only pointed out that prior to the invasion Ukraine, backed by NATO, had been consistently trying to provoke a Response from Russia by persecuting ethnic Russian minorities in Ukraine, dared to hope even before we scrutinised Stoltenberg's statement, that it might signal a step back from NATO's policy of doing all it can to escalate the conflict.
Before these remarks made by Stoltenberg while talking to Lorne Cook of associated Press (full transcript,), US and NATO officials including and mainstream media journalists and commentators, have constructed a narrative presenting the invasion as the exclusive promotion of Russian president Vladimir Putin, and an act of 'unprovoked' aggression aimed at incorporating Ukraine in an 'expansionist Russia' as a first step towatds recreating The Soviet Union.
However Stoltenberg now admits what alt_news reporters and opinion writers have been saying all along, "the war didn't start in February last year. The war started in 2014."
🇺🇸🇪🇺🇺🇦🇷🇺"NATO has been training the Ukrainian military since 2014, NATO partners have been supplying the Ukrainian armed forces with the necessary weapons and training since 2014" — Jens Stoltenbergs admits again
"Unprovoked invasion"... pic.twitter.com/Qa8shKSWXx— AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZgeopolitics) February 14, 2023
Here's what the NATO chief said in response to a question while briefing reporters on camera.
"The other thing I will say is that the war didn't start in February last year. The war started in 2014. And since 2014, NATO Allies have provided support to Ukraine, with training, with equipment, so the Ukrainian Armed Forces were much stronger in 2022, than they were in 2020, and 2014. And of course, that made a huge difference when President Putin decided to attack Ukraine,"
It is hard to think of any way of putting the point more clearly.
The main provocation for the war, spelled out by by President Putin both in the lead-up to the invasion and after has consistently been that the West was waging an anti-Russia proxy war right at Russia's doorstep, by supporting Kiev's ethnic cleansing campaign Donbass.
We should also recall, before responding to anti Russian propaganda from Kiev, Washington, London and Brussels that throughout last year, and especially in the opening months of the major Russian invasion, any author, reporter or blogcaster daring to point out that the conflict in fact originated in 2014 - and that the current fighting is an extension and escalation of the 'long war' - was denounced as somehow 'pro-Kremlin' or else a 'Putin puppet' in mainstream discourse.
In the Russian view, the United States has the ability and willingness to unilaterally destroy or overthrow any government that does not do its bidding. The experience of Serbia (1999), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and most recently Ukraine (2014) and the attempt in Belarus (2021) seem to support their perspective.
Those who are going on about Russia's "imperial ambitions" under "Communist dictator Vladimir Putin" have little knowledge about any of this, or why the Russians might feel legitimately threatened by having a US-sponsored and NATO-aligned nation run by a crazy, triger happy neo Nazi regime as a neighbor.
Below: a rare past instance of what real journalism looks like, often completely missing in the administration's press briefing rooms...
Pentagon bullshitter John Kirby confronted with persistent journalist..... pic.twitter.com/Q69lglv43y
— Richard (@ricwe123) February 16, 2023
For over two hundred years, the American "Monroe Doctrine" has stated that no foreign power will be allowed to form a military alliance with any nation in the entire Western Hemisphere. This has always been the bedrock principle of American foreign policy.
Such a policy could never hold in Europe where traditional enemies such as Germany and France must rub shoulders. Kiev and Moscow are separated by a mere 470 miles of flat land. What Russian leader in their right mind would allow an "anti-Russia" to be created and then armed in its own back yard?
The Russians have been straight forward about this concern since the break up of The Soviet Union, yet despite an informal agreement between presidents Clinton and Yeltsin in 1992, that NATO would not seek to recruit former Soviet Republics, American, EU and NATO leaders were pushing for Ukraine's NATO membership to be fast tracked right up to the last ditch public appeal from Moscow in December. Recall that ideological fanatics in our foreign services who dream of imposing 'western values' on the whole world, responded by sending massive shipments full of weapons into Ukraine, and then tweeted out photos of the cargo aircraft flying them in.
The last year of horrific death and destruction in Ukraine has shown, the necons and wokesters finally got their war. Now, having stymied early attempts by Russia and Ukraine to negotiate a settlement, they're making sure it gets fought down to the last Ukrainian by pandering to warmonger Zelensky's every request for more, and more deadly weapons, resulting in very sad and tragic spectacles we have been seeing on TV and in news pages for far too long now...
Foreign and Ukrainian soldiers cross an improvised path under a destroyed bridge in Kiev. [Felipe Dana/AP Photo]
RELATED:
Status Report On That War Thing In Ukraine: Nordstream to Bakhmut, electricity and water - December 2022
EU Vows To Retaliate if Nord Stream Gas Pipeline Blasts Were Sabotage - But against whom, the USA?
EXPLORE:
[Daily Stirrer] ... [Boggart Aboad] ... [ Ian Thorpe at Quora ] ... [ Greenteeth Home ] ... [ Greenteeth on Minds.com ] ... [ Here Come The Russians ] ... [ Latest Posts ]