General Martin Dempsey

The US has escalated hostilities in Europe further, citing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, who said the US Army is ready to back up Ukraine and its allies in Europe with military action.

According to the Web site of the Atlantic Council, Dempsey said that “he’s sending a clear message to Ukraine and members of NATO that the US military will respond militarily if necessary.”

“We do have treaty obligations with our NATO allies. And I have assured them that if that treaty obligation is triggered [in Europe], we would respond,” Dempsey said.

According to the General, an independent Crimea creates risk for all the countries of Europe and NATO allies.

“If Russia is allowed to do this, which is to say move into a sovereign country under the guise of protecting ethnic Russians in Ukraine, it exposes Eastern Europe to some significant risk, because there are ethnic enclaves all over Eastern Europe and the Balkans.”

Obama’s war fever, his patent disregard for the sovereignty of nations, his expansion of the Afghanistan war, his illicit use of drones and continued operation of Guantanamo – all deemed “war crimes” of the Bush administration – are now hailed by Democrats and Hawks alike as “democracy”.

As conservative pundit Ann Coulter laments: “I’m sorry, but who cares about military spending as long as Obama is president? At the rate he’s going, Obama might use our military to attack England.”

In response, Russia’s Defense Ministry has given permission for a surveillance flight by Ukraine over Russian territory near the border between the countries. Kiev had claimed Moscow was building up its military presence there.

“The Ukrainians have asked for an unscheduled observation flight over our territory,” Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told reporters in Moscow.

Russia and Ukraine are entitled to surveillance flights over each other’s territories following the Open Skies treaty signed in 1992, but Antonov said that Kiev had never asked for one before.

“We have decided to allow such a flight. We hope that our neighbors are assured that there is no military activity that threatens them on the border.”

Antonov vehemently denied a statement Tuesday by Igor Tenyukh, defense minister for the Kiev coup-appointed government, that Russia had amassed more than 220,000 troops, 1,800 tanks and over 400 helicopters in regions adjacent to eastern Ukraine.

“Ukrainian military officials know full well that the entire [Russian] Southern and Western Military Districts put together don’t have that much equipment. The only way you could arrive at that number of soldiers would be if you counted their families,” Antonov said.

“I would dissuade Mr Tenyukh from adding fuel to the fire of the crisis, which is what he appears to be doing. He openly outlined the reasons for this himself, when he asked the Ukrainian parliament to issue him with more funding,” continued the Russian official.

Antonov added that continuing mass training exercises in eastern Ukraine, which Kiev began this week, could plunge Ukraine into even deeper turmoil.

“Staging exercises in an area that is gripped by mass protests against the new regime which came to power as a result of a coup is a risky endeavor, which could further destabilize the political situation in Ukraine,” Antonov insisted.

Oleksandr Turchynov’s, Ukraine’s acting president, said earlier his country could not use its army alone to stop Crimea’s independence, thereby enhancing the possibility of US intervention.

The unusual US decision to close its diplomatic missions en masse in the Middle East Sunday was prompted by intercepts of high-ranking Al-Qaeda operatives signaling a major attack, US lawmakers said Sunday.

Lawmakers briefed on the intelligence called the threat reporting among the most serious they’ve seen in recent years, reminiscent of the intelligence chatter that preceded the September 11, 2001, attacks.

“There is a significant threat stream and we’re reacting to it,” General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview with ABC.

Dempsey said the specific locations and targets were not known but “the intent is to attack Western, not just US interests.”

At least 25 US embassies and consular offices were ordered closed Sunday, most of them in the Middle East and North Africa, in response to the threat.

Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC’s “This Week” that Al-Qaeda’s “operatives are in place.”

He said the United States knows this “because we’ve received information that high level people from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are talking about a major attack and these are people in the high level.”

ABC News cited an unnamed US official as saying there was concern that Al-Qaeda might deploy suicide attackers with surgically implanted bombs to evade security.

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul, said the United States was in a high state of alert, calling it “probably one of the most specific and credible threats I’ve seen, perhaps, since 9/11.”

He said an attack appeared to be “imminent,” possibly timed to coincide with the last night of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

The suspected plot comes against the backdrop of a series of recent prison breaks in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan in which thousands of inmates have escaped, he said, creating additional risks.

US sensitivity to embassy security also has been heightened by the Al-Qaeda attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, last September 11 that claimed the life of the US ambassador and three other Americans.

It also dovetailed an intensifying US debate over electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency following bombshell leaks by fugitive former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

The NSA’s congressional supporters were quick to point to the role of electronic intercepts in obtaining the latest intelligence, while dismissing suggestions it also served to divert attention from the agency’s role in scooping up Americans’ phone and Internet data.

“If we did not have these programs, then we simply wouldn’t be able to listen in on the bad guys,” said Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

However, he pointed out that the latest threat warnings did not stem from controversial domestic electronic surveillance programs, but from NSA’s monitoring operations outside the United States.

“And that’s where all the planning is taking place, we think that’s where the activities is planned for,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Representative Peter King, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the intelligence was specific “as to how enormous it was going to be, and also there’s certain dates were given.”

“And, you know, the assumption is that it’s probably most likely to happen in the Middle East at or about one of the embassies, but there’s no guarantee of that at all,” he said on ABC.

“It could basically be in Europe, it could be in the United States, it could be a series of combined attacks,” he said.

Chambliss likened the stream of information to the intelligence chatter that preceded the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington.

“What we have heard is some specifics on what’s intended to be done and some individuals who are making plans such as we saw before 9/11,” he said.

“Whether they’re going to be suicide deaths that are used or whether they’re planning on vehicle-born bombs being carried into an area, we don’t know,” he said. – AFP

Tag: General Martin Dempsey

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