PRESS RELEASE
Gen. Wesley Clark Calls for U.S. To Arm Ukraine
April 1, 2015 (EIRNS)—The U.S./NATO war drive against Russia continues from both sides of the Atlantic. Exemplary of this insanity are remarks by former NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark (ret.) at the Atlantic Council yesterday, during which he predicted that Russia will launch an offensive against Ukraine that will begin sometime between mid-April and the May 9 Victory Day celebration.
"This is the time we should be providing the assistance," before there is any move against the port city of Mariupol and Kharkiv near the Russian border, Clark argued. The U.S. posture, he said, should be like that towards Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war. He claimed that there are 8,000-9,000 Russians inside the D.P.R./L.P.R. helping the independence forces, and another 50,000 troops across the border in Russia, and 50,000 more in Crimea. Further reflecting his geopolitical view of the world, Clark claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s single focus is "to bring Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit," and secondly, "to drive a wedge between the United States and Western Europe and between Western and Eastern Europe that could lead to collapse of some of those governments."
Lyndon LaRouche said, in response to Clark but referring to this war party more broadly: These are lunatic war-makers out to destroy the world in a thermonuclear war. What they are saying is lunacy, and it is immoral. The argument itself is a threat to mankind.
The current NATO commander was in Romania yesterday, where he expressed approval of the military convoy of U.S. troops traveling across five countries of Eastern Europe on their way back to Germany, calling the whole operation "a good message of reassurance." He also expressed confidence that Romania will agree to host some portion of the armored brigade set of equipment that the U.S. Army plans to preposition in Eastern Europe.
NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, a day earlier, was speaking before the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, where he pronounced that NATO and the European Union should work even more closely together than they are now. There are three areas, he said according to Xinhua, where there is "great potential" for even closer cooperation. The first area is "building resilience together, by strengthening our defense in facing new threats such as for instance hybrid warfare." The second is "building resilience together with our neighbors, in the east and the south." The third is "defense investment."
On the military exercise front, NATO is beginning the first working-out of its Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, the so-called spearhead of the expanded NATO response force. The exercise, called "Noble Jump," will focus on mobilization and responding to "rapid orders to move," under the new VJTF framework, NATO says. "As such, this event represents a learning process that will allow NATO military staff to identify both successes and shortfalls during the early stages of the development process," NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe said in an advisory.
A dozen U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter jets arrived at Leeuwarden in the Netherlands yesterday. Among other things, they will be participating in a three-month series of exercises in Bulgaria beginning April 10, the Defense Ministry in Sofia announced yesterday. Some 350 U.S. ground troops with tanks and helicopters, will also be participating, reports Reuters.
