A group of former U.S. Intelligence officials including William Binny, the first whistleblower to report on the NSA\u2019s mass surveillance, has sent an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, warning her of the risks of Ukrainian NATO membership and of the dangers of faulty intelligence resulting in an escalation of the conflict, as published on the website Antiwar.org<\/p>\n
Addressing Mrs. Merkel, the letter states that \u201caccusations of a major Russian \u2018invasion\u2019 of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence\u2026[and] the \u2018intelligence\u2019 seems to be of the same dubious, politically \u2018fixed\u2019 kind used 12 years ago to \u2018justify\u2019 the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.\u201d It also notes that last year, \u201chawkish State Department officials and their friends in the media very nearly got Mr. Obama to launch a major attack on Syria based, once again, on \u2018intelligence\u2019 that was dubious, at best.\u201d<\/p>\n
This statement, released by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), has been published ahead of the NATO Summit to take place September 4-5. The most prominent member of the group, William Binney, is a former high ranking NSA official and the first whistleblower to come out and speak out against the NSA\u2019s warrantless wiretapping program.<\/p>\n
He and the group use the letter to draw comparisons between the lead up to the 2003 Iraq war and the current escalation happening right now in Ukraine. The main point that they make is that the intelligence being used now to justify NATO intervention into Ukraine is unsubstantiated and politicized. They say based on their \u201cconsiderable experience collecting, analyzing, and reporting on all kinds of satellite and other imagery [and] other kinds of intelligence\u201d that the evidence being used to charge Russia with invading Ukraine has \u201ca very flimsy basis.\u201d They further note that the evidence is reminiscent of that presented by Colin Powell at the UN in February 2003 ahead of the Iraq War, which turned out to be false. They add further that twelve years ago, then Chancellor Gerhard <\/p>\n
Schroeder refused to join the attack on Iraq because of the lack of solid evidence.<\/p>\n
In the several months since the conflict in Ukraine started, there have been many reports about both sides which have turned out to be false. In their letter, the group points to cases of dissonance between President Barack Obama\u2019s words and their own officials\u2019 rhetoric. The Western media and many leaders have recently jumped on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko\u2019s claim of a Russian invasion into Ukraine. <\/p>\n
Poroshenko even cancelled a foreign trip to stay and address the situation. Since then, many media outlets reported a massive invasion by the Russians, both with troops and armored vehicles. Obama on the other hand, has instead said that what is going on in Ukraine is \u201ca continuation of what\u2019s been taking place for months now\u2026it\u2019s not really a shift.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noting this dissonance, the group urges Mrs. Merkel and other European leaders to use \u201cjudicious skepticism\u201d in their discussions of the crisis.<\/p>\n
They also urge Chancellor Merkel and her colleagues to push for a \u201cconcerted effort [toward] a ceasefire,\u201d which they believe Kiev has been responsible for delaying. The letter urges the Chancellor to tell the Ukrainian government \u201c\u2019flat-out\u2019 that membership in NATO is not in the cards \u2013and that NATO has no intention of waging a proxy war with Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n
The summit has been planned to take place on 4-5 September in Cardiff, Wales.<\/p>\n
Following Crimea\u2019s reunification with Russia in March 2014, NATO has been boosting its military presence close to Russia\u2019s border. In particular, the bloc dispatched a number of warships to the Black Sea, and reinforced air patrolling missions in the airspace of the Baltic states.<\/p>\n
In April, Washington sent four airborne units to Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to support its NATO allies amid the fighting in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n
NATO plans to establish five additional military bases in Eastern Europe, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Russia has repeatedly expressed concern over NATO\u2019s increasing military presence in its neighboring states.<\/p>\n
Source: Ria Novosti<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A group of former U.S. Intelligence officials including William Binny, the first whistleblower to report on the NSA\u2019s mass surveillance, has sent an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, warning her of the risks of Ukrainian NATO membership and of the dangers of faulty intelligence resulting in an escalation of the conflict, as published … Continue reading “Former US Intel officials urge Merkel to reject politicized intelligence”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[3294,51,7484,9874],"class_list":["post-15677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","tag-angela-merkel","tag-germany","tag-ukraine","tag-us-intel-officials"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15677","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\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15678,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15677\/revisions\/15678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}