Invia

Hacked emails published by DC Leaks reveal General Philip Breedlove, NATO commander in Europe during the war in Ukraine, putting pressure on Obama for a military response to Russia. Which fortunately never happened.

 

Hawks and doves. It is a distinction that cuts the world in two with an axe, but for once it gives the right idea. The commander of NATO forces in Europe during the peak of the war in Ukraine, General Philip Breedlove, did his best to cause a military escalation with Russia.

The website DC Leaks – the same one that published the leaked documents from the Geroge Soros foundation and Hillary Clinton‘s election campaign, and supposedly run by Russian hackers – has published a brief exchange of emails between Breedlove and former US secretary of State, Colin Powell, and Harlan Ullman, a military official and former academic with very good connections in the White House. The goal? To pressure Obama to give Ukraine weapons and challenge Putin.

To leverage, cajole, convince or coerce Obama

“I may be wrong, … but I do not see this WH really ‘engaged’ by working with Europe/NATO,” he writes in an email to Powell. “Frankly I think we are a ‘worry,’ … ie a threat to get the nation drug into a conflict. I seek your counsel on two fronts, how to frame this opportunity in a time where all eyes are on ISIL all the time, … and two, … how to work this personally with the POTUS”. While in another email to Ullman, referring to the attempt to apply his influence to Obama, he writes: “I think POTUS sees us as a threat that must be minimized, … ie do not get me into a war????”

In his reply, Ullman is even clearer. “You and the SecGen might be able to fashion a NATO strategy to leverage, cajole, convince or coerce the US to react. Given Obama’s instruction to you not to start a war, this may be a tough sell”. And yet, writes Ullman on the eve of the Minsk-2 negotiations, “Obama or Kerry needs to be convinced that Putin must be confronted”.

Phillip Karaber, an academic who appears in the email exchange with Breedlove about some Ukrainian intelligence information, confirmed the authenticity of the email relating to him and told the American newspaper The Intercept that Breedlove confirmed to him that the general’s Gmail account was hacked.

Fabricated figures

Trying to push NATO and America into a direct confrontation with Putin, Breedlove has not only looked to influence Obama, but he also tried to exaggerate the Russian military threat.

In 2015, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported an embarrassing announcement of the NATO commander to the German government. Breedlove had claimed “over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of the most sophisticated air defence, battalions of artillery” in Donbass, an announcement extremely downsized by the German military. This was probably an attempt to influence Angela Merkel, aligned with Obama for a diplomatic solution.

But this wasn’t the first time that Breedlove had overestimated the threat. Like when he reported as many as 20,000 troops along the Russian border ready to invade Ukraine, while German intelligence said the Russian military equipment had been stored there well before the Maidan. Or like that time he briefed the House Armed Services Committee saying 80,000 Russian soldiers were prepared to cross the border in the Donbass, while the same Department of Defence knew that there could be no more than 40,000.

Breedlove resigned in May and retired in July. That’s probably a good thing.

@daniloeliatweet