{"id":181419,"date":"2016-07-01T19:19:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-02T00:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/07\/01\/general-strangelove-breedlove-revealed\/"},"modified":"2016-07-01T19:19:00","modified_gmt":"2016-07-02T00:19:00","slug":"general-strangelove-breedlove-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/07\/01\/general-strangelove-breedlove-revealed\/","title":{"rendered":"General Strangelove Breedlove Revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have wondered if former SACEUR (military leader of NATO) Phillip Breedlove is completely nuts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Well, it appears that someone hacked his email and removed all doubt as to his insanity<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, until recently the supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe, plotted in private to overcome President Barack Obama\u2019s reluctance to escalate military tensions with Russia over the war in Ukraine in 2014, according to apparently hacked emails from Breedlove\u2019s Gmail account that were posted on a new website called DC Leaks.<\/span>

<\/span>Obama defied political pressure from hawks in Congress and the military to provide lethal assistance to the Ukrainian government, fearing that doing so would increase the bloodshed and provide Russian President Vladimir Putin with the justification for deeper incursions into the country.<\/span>

<\/span>Breedlove, during briefings to Congress, notably contradicted the Obama administration regarding the situation in Ukraine, leading to news stories about conflict between the general and Obama.<\/span>

<\/span>But the leaked emails provide an even more dramatic picture of the intense back-channel lobbying for the Obama administration to begin a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.<\/span>

<\/span>In a series of messages in 2014, Breedlove sought meetings with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking for advice on how to pressure the Obama administration to take a more aggressive posture toward Russia.<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>Breedlove attempted to influence the administration through several channels, emailing academics and retired military officials, including former NATO supreme commander Wesley Clark, for assistance in building his case for supplying military assistance to Ukrainian forces battling Russian-backed separatists.<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>Phillip Karber, an academic who corresponded regularly with Breedlove \u2014 providing him with advice and intelligence on the Ukrainian crisis \u2014 verified the authenticity of several of the emails in the leaked cache. He also told The Intercept that Breedlove confirmed to him that the general\u2019s Gmail account was hacked and that the incident had been reported to the government.<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>In the European press, Breedlove has been portrayed as a hawkish figure known for leaning on allied nations to ditch diplomacy and to adopt a more confrontational role again Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine. Breedlove, testifying before Congress earlier in February of this year, called Russia \u201ca long-term existential threat to the United States and to our European allies.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span>Der Spiegel reported that Breedlove \u201cstunned\u201d German leaders with a surprise announcement in 2015 claiming that pro-Russian separatists had \u201cupped the ante\u201d in eastern Ukraine with \u201cwell over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of the most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery\u201d sent to Donbass, a center of the conflict.<\/span>

<\/span>Breedlove\u2019s numbers were \u201csignificantly higher\u201d than the figures known to NATO intelligence agencies and seemed exaggerated to German officials. The announcement appeared to be a provocation designed to disrupt mediation efforts led by Chancellor Angela Merkel.<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>The emails, however, depict a desperate search by Breedlove to build his case for escalating the conflict, contacting colleagues and friends for intelligence to illustrate the Russian threat. Karber, who visited Ukrainian politicians and officials in Kiev on several occasions, sent frequent messages to Breedlove \u2014 \u201cper your request,\u201d he noted \u2014 regarding information he had received about separatist military forces and Russian troop movements. In several updates, Breedlove received military data sourced from Twitter and social media.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not just a dangerously bellicose general officer, but an insubordinate one as well.<\/p>\n

He wanted war with Russia, and he was using tweets in an attempt coerce the President of the United States to go along with his folly.<\/p>\n

That is completely nuts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have wondered if former SACEUR (military leader of NATO) Phillip Breedlove is completely nuts. Well, it appears that someone hacked his email and removed all doubt as to his insanity: Retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, until recently the supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe, plotted in private to overcome President Barack …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[999,1006,1043],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insane","category-military","category-nato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181419"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}