{"id":13330,"date":"2014-03-13T05:55:26","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T05:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13330"},"modified":"2014-03-13T05:56:57","modified_gmt":"2014-03-13T05:56:57","slug":"us-threatens-war-if-treaty-obligations-triggered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13330","title":{"rendered":"US threatens war &#8216;if treaty obligations triggered&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_13331\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13331\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/dempseys.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13331\" alt=\"The Dempseys enjoying war\" src=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/dempseys-300x203.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/dempseys-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/dempseys-190x130.jpg 190w, https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/dempseys.jpg 447w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13331\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Dempseys enjoying war<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">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.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">According to the Web site of the Atlantic Council, Dempsey said that &#8220;he&#8217;s sending a clear message to Ukraine and members of NATO that the US military will respond militarily if necessary.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;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,&#8221; Dempsey said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">According to the General, an independent Crimea creates risk for all the countries of Europe and NATO allies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Obama\u2019s 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 &#8211; all deemed \u201cwar crimes\u201d of the Bush administration &#8211; are now hailed by Democrats and Hawks alike as &#8220;democracy&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As conservative pundit Ann Coulter laments: &#8220;I\u2019m sorry, but who cares about military spending as long as Obama is president? At the rate he\u2019s going, Obama might use our military to attack England.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In response, Russia\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe Ukrainians have asked for an unscheduled observation flight over our territory,\u201d Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told reporters in Moscow.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Russia and Ukraine are entitled to surveillance flights over each other&#8217;s territories following the Open Skies treaty signed in 1992, but Antonov said that Kiev had never asked for one before.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">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.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cUkrainian military officials know full well that the entire [Russian] Southern and Western Military Districts put together don\u2019t have that much equipment. The only way you could arrive at that number of soldiers would be if you counted their families,\u201d Antonov said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;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,&#8221; continued the Russian official.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Antonov added that continuing mass training exercises in eastern Ukraine, which Kiev began this week, could plunge Ukraine into even deeper turmoil.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cStaging 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,\u201d Antonov insisted.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Oleksandr Turchynov&#8217;s, Ukraine&#8217;s acting president, said earlier his country could not use its army alone to stop Crimea&#8217;s independence, thereby enhancing the possibility of US intervention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &#8220;he&#8217;s sending a clear &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=13330\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;US threatens war &#8216;if treaty obligations triggered&#8217;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8616,8614,8472,4724,8615,2376,994,7484],"class_list":["post-13330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-balkans","tag-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-staff","tag-crimea","tag-general-martin-dempsey","tag-military-action","tag-nato","tag-sovereignty","tag-ukraine"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/dempseys.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13330"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13334,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13330\/revisions\/13334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}