The Pentagon refuses to say whether Joe Biden even informed it of his reckless decision to allow the strikes, which the DoD has strenuously opposed, reports Joe Lauria.
The Pentagon seems to have been kept in the dark about a decision that could lead to a third world war. (Joe Lauria)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Ukraine on Tuesday fired six U.S. ATACMS missiles into Russian territory just two days after outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden gave them permission to despite a Russian warning of a potential U.S.-NATO war as a result.
Ukraine says its attack before dawn targeted an ammunition dump not in Kursk, which Biden had authorized, but in neighboring Bryansk, a region in southwest Russia, 110 kilometers from Ukraine’s border.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it shot down five of the six ATACMS. According to The New York Times, a representative of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said the strike hit depots containing “artillery ammunition, including North Korean ammunition for their systems, guided aerial bombs, antiaircraft missiles and ammunition for multiple-launch rocket systems.” Russia said there was only minimal damage to the site.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei V Lavrov told a press conference: “The fact that multiple ATACMS were used last night against the Bryansk Region signals that they [in the West] want escalation. You see, it is impossible to use these high-tech missiles without the Americans, and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has repeatedly said this.”
On Monday, the Kremlin spokesman had reiterated Putin’s warning that because NATO personnel were required to fire such missiles it meant NATO would enter into direct war with Russia, changing the meaning of the conflict. That has now happened.
November Surprise
As a result Biden is risking what he had previously warned would be “World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine,” he told reporters in March 2022 when he listened to the Pentagon and overruled his secretary of state Antony Blinken on a NATO no-fly zone.
Then just two months ago, in September, Biden deferred to Pentagon realists by opposing long-range British Storm Shadow missiles from being fired by Ukraine deep into Russia for fear it would lead to a direct NATO-Russia war with potentially unimaginable consequences.
And yet now, in a kind of November Surprise, after American voters resoundingly sent his party packing from the White House, a dishonorable Biden, with just weeks to go in power, is at the roulette wheel piling humanity’s chips high on the table to save his reckless Ukraine gamble and to make it even more difficult for incoming president Donald Trump to end the war.
And when the war ends with the inevitable Ukrainian defeat Biden can then blame Trump and try to get himself off the hook for the disaster he created.
[See:On Way Out Reckless Biden Allows Deep Russia Strikes] and [See: Biden Confirms Why the US Needed This War]
Did the Pentagon Even Know?
Whereas the Pentagon twice before restrained Biden from starting a direct war with Russia, this time it seems he didn’t even tell the Defense Department, defying it with this extraordinarily irresponsible move.
Asked point blank by reporters on Monday whether Biden had consulted with the brass before unleashing Ukraine with the ATACMS, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh repeatedly dodged the question.
“Q: So the White House has not notified the Pentagon that they’ve allowed Ukraine to start doing long range strike?
DEPUTY PENTAGON PRESS SINGH: I just don’t have anything to add to the reporting over the weekend.
Q: But can you confirm that the Pentagon, like that Biden let Secretary of Defense Austin know that this is greenlighted now?
DEPUTY PENTAGON PRESS SINGH: I cannot confirm the reports and I cannot go into more details about the reporting. All I can tell you is that in terms of your second question on the ATACMS, we over the course of different presidential drawdown packages, we have provided Ukraine with, you know, ATACMS. Our support for Ukraine, you know, continues with different PDAs. But when it comes to the reporting that you’re referencing from over the weekend, I just don’t have more to provide at this time.”
The ATACMS the Pentagon provided previously were for use only within the pre-2022 borders of Ukraine and Crimea, not to be shot into Russia. Perhaps Singh couldn’t provide any more details beyond the weekend’s reporting because the Pentagon may have only learned of this momentous decision by reading about it in the paper like everybody else.
Russian Restraint Until Trump Takes Over?
Will Moscow resist following through on its warning to hit back at NATO targets until Jan. 20, when Trump takes over and possibly withdraws permission from Ukraine? It may depend on how many ATACMS Ukraine is given (the Pentagon says they’re in short supply) and how intense the strikes are.
Biden is evidently among those in NATO who thinks Putin is bluffing. With these ATACAM strikes today the 8-week president thinks he’s calling that bluff, playing poker with the future of humanity. As it happens, on Tuesday, the very day of Ukraine’s strikes, Putin unveiled Russia’s new nuclear war doctrine with two major changes.
The first says: “An aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies of any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state will be regarded as their joint attack.” That clearly would include Ukraine.
The second significant change reads: “The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear arms and/or other weapons of mass destruction against itself and/or its allies … if such an aggression creates a critical threat for their sovereignty and/or territorial integrity.”
The language “critical threat” was substituted for when “the very existence of the state is in jeopardy,” lowering the bar for using a nuclear weapon.
All this was brushed off by the White House in a statement from the U.S. National Security Council that said it had observed “no changes to Russia’s nuclear posture.” In a chilling article presaging a world sleep walking into nuclear annihilation, David Sanger of The New York Times wrote:
“It was telling that the reaction in Washington on Tuesday was just short of a yawn. Officials dismissed the doctrine as the nothingburger of nuclear threats. Instead, the city was rife with speculation over who would prevail as Treasury secretary, or whether Matt Gaetz, a former congressman surrounded by sex-and-drug allegations though never charged, could survive the confirmation process to become attorney general.
The Ukraine war has changed many things: It has ended hundreds of thousands of lives and shattered millions, it has shaken Europe, and it has deepened the enmity between Russia and the United States. But it has also inured Washington and the world to the renewed use of nuclear weapons as the ultimate bargaining chip. The idea that one of the nine countries now in possession of nuclear weapons — with Iran on the threshold of becoming the tenth — might press the button is more likely to evoke shrugs than a convening of the United Nations Security Council.”
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
Now we get the capstone exhibit demonstrating the prescience of Obama’s warning, “never underestimate Joe’s ability to F@#$ things up” …
and dr. jill not there to dissuade him
from recklessly risking the overkill?
it is rather frustrating to realize how
helplessly we underlings can only stand by
and watch mad men destroy what they
pretended to love to the point of wanting
god to bless it …
The Democrats and the neocons now running their show know that the proverbial sh*t is about to hit the fan on many levels . Biden will face the music along with especially his son Hunter and that is why the existing president is losing it .The lap top or copies and all .
Just as well there is so much corruption and not just in or under Democratic rule ,that nothing less than a complete overhaul can save the US of A and the Western world for that matter .IMHO.
One can only speculate that Russia may have fine tuned its nuclear policy because it foresees conventional retalitory strikes against NATO quite possible, were NATO to strike Russia via Ukraine for example with Storm Shadow or SCALP missiles and cause significant damage, so that if NATO does respond to Russia’s retaliation and produces a critical threat, NATO knows that Russia may then respond with nuclear weapons. It may be that the United States’ MIC is truly quite hell bent on starting an all out war with Russia vs any type of negotiating. Russia may already suspect this whether they are or not, and may be seriously considering a retalitory strike against NATO in order to let NATO know that it is serious in order to make them think again before continuing to escalate. The overall problem is that Russia’s mere existence is critical threat to the ability for the United States to invade, rape and plunder any country it wants, for very soon a multi-polar world will be able to keep the United States in check providing military and economic security to the global south.
The concern over whether or not Biden informed the Pentagon of his decision seems entirely misplaced to me and suggests he made the decision instead of the other way around. Biden has never “been in charge” — we saw this year that Dr. Jill Biden has to run his cabinet meetings for him! He is, however, a very willing puppet of the MIC and the national security apparatus. He was as Senator and Vice-President as well, so it was an extremely comfortable position for him to slip into as President when his cognitive abilities had left him (this was evident even in 2020). The party that rigged its primaries until this year when it dispensed with them entirely, that decided to dump Biden as a candidate after the debate and pick a successor candidate in a smoke-filled room rather than open its convention (i.e., the “party defending democracy”) was certainly not going to use the 25th Amendment to kick him out of the Oval Office once his cognitive decline became impossible to ignore or cover up! They knew they could never find another stooge this compliant.
Russia has clearly stated that it may respond to this latest strike inside it’s territory (by a Nuclear armed ally…the US) with whatever force it deems necessary to protect itself. It is time to listen carefully and consider what they are saying. A devastating retaliatory blow may well occur unless Russia is holding out hope there may still be some chance of resolving the Ukrainian conflict when Trump takes power.
This is a deadly high stakes game of Chicken since any agreement with Trump and his new gang of Neo-con bullies will only postpone an ultimate conflict between the East and West. The fault lies with the West since it is the West (the centers of finance) that shows no signs of abating their relentless pursuit to mold the entire planet into an unrestrained Capitalistic economy.
The fallacy with this reasoning is that unrestrained Capitalism requires unrestrained growth. Unrestrained consumption, a supply of infinite material resources, a world climate that can disperse the additional heat, and room for a human population to grow perpetually. Sure, who wouldn’t prefer perpetual growth? But our tiny Planet is FINITE!…and unrestrained growth is the very definition of CANCER! Is that what we want for ourselves and our children?
Therefore, RESTRAINED CAPITALISM coupled with HUMANISTIC SOCIALISM are our only viable sustainable alternatives.
Russia, China and the Brics Nations are headed in the correct direction. The Western model may only succeed by intimidation and ultimately killing everyone else (In which case it will still die as it consumes it’s own carcass). So, that seems to be the West’s offer….join us or die. If we wonder what Russia will do?… How would you act to this ultimatum?
The ATACMS need the Pentagon’s assistance for use.
So they can’t deny being alerted.
But they can deny being consulted. As the pentagon talked Biden/Biden’s stand-ins out of authorizing ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles back in September, Biden’s sudden reversal (zero advance warning that this was under consideration) indicates to me that the Pentagon was given no opportunity to dissuade the Whitehouse.
“…It wasn’t even 48 hours after the Biden regime’s ‘green light’ that Ukraine used U.S.-made long-range missiles to strike within Russian territory [….] Ukrainian President Zelenskyy delusionally remarked that the strike is part of the country’s “victory plan.”
“Victory”? At the price of millions of Ukrainians killed in a struggle over pro-Russian territories on the outskirts of a former Soviet Republic?
No, this is madness….” – hxxps://beckerbrief.substack.com/p/joe-bidens-birthday-gift-to-america
The Neocons, Biden, and the Dems’ exit strategy for months was to blame the Republicans for not funding their disastrous and provoked war. But the election of Trump changed all that. Thanks for making that Biden sabotage clear.
How many American stooges does it take to start a nuclear war? Apparently one, the rest are his minions…
Russia has been very patient in practicing self-restraint and self control. However. Western routines of prolonging this conflict, which, the West orchestrated in the first place, is nothing but a profiteering enterprise for the Military-Industrial-Complex, including “saving ” Biden, father and son, from legal actions that condemn their nefarious feats of corruption, beginning with the Maidan Coup d’état, climaxing into Burisma, headed by Hujnter Biden, who was already poised to conclude a deal with Shell and Chevron to start digging for oil in Donbass and Crimea. Thus, postponed legal wranglings until Joe Biden leaves Office. *
Zients, Sullivan and Blinken should face capital punishment. After due process, they should face capital punishment.
Who or what is Zients?
Biden’s Chief of Staff for about the last two years. He’s arguably the real president.
Insanity.
Trump must contact the Kremlin and assure them this crazy policy will be reversed once he’s in office. And yes, I understand Trump’s not necessarily all that pro-Russia, and is nowhere near as friendly to the Russian govt as our intel-Defense Dept corporate media make out. But he’s got to at least understand the perilous fallout such a reckless policy could have.
It’s inconceivable back in 2022 when the SMO first began that we’d see U.S.-made ATACMS missiles launched into Russia proper. It’s not the Ukes doing this. Sure, some Uke might use his finger to press the button, but it’s Washington’s reconnaissance, technology, satellites, expert personnel and of course actual missiles that are the entire operation.
This is America at war with Russia!
Believe what you want, but when Moscow counterpunches, hard!, you can’t say they weren’t violently and dangerously provoked in the most blatant way possible.
The Democrats would immediately accuse Trump of violating the Logan Act if he were to do so. But your observation that he is not nearly so pro-Russia as has been depicted is an accurate one. In fact, Caitlan Johnstone has gone so far as to suggest that the purpose of this alarming escalation may not have been to present Trump with a fait accompli, but to pass him the baton. All the talk during the campaign about Trump’s being the non-interventionist or, even more absurdly, the “peace” candidate was no more than people desperate for some sort of silver lining to see what they wanted to see. Nothing the Oligarchy wants ever gets voted on in American elections any more, and the Oligarchy definitely wants American Empire and power projection.
The Democrats would immediately accuse Trump of violating the Logan Act if he were to do so. But your observation that Trump is not nearly so pro-Russia as has been depicted is an accurate one. In fact, Caitlan Johnstone has gone so far as to suggest that the purpose of this alarming escalation by the current administration may not have been to present Trump with a fait accompli, but to pass him the baton. All the talk during the campaign about Trump’s being the non-interventionist or, even more absurdly, the “peace” candidate was no more than people desperate for some sort of silver lining to see what they wanted to see. Nothing the Oligarchy wants ever gets voted on in American elections any more, and the Oligarchy definitely wants American Empire and power projection.
The Bidens are prolonging this EU-provoked conflict, to postpone the probable “legal wranglings” ensueing from their “corrupt machinations” in Ukraine, ranging from Hunter Biden’s Burisma financial debacles to the 2014 Maidan coup d’état, to the illegal “contracts” for SHELL and CHEVRON to start digging for oil and gas, in the Donbass and Crimea. In short, mass media complicit subversion and suppression of the truth might not be sufficient to avert eventual prosecution of the Bidens for international racketeering, tax evasion, corrupt business practices, and abuse of official government authority and influence-peddling. Only time will tell. *
So, American missiles, American satellite guidance and targeting, American personnel, were all employed in a strike against Russia.
And the Pentagon and DoD didn’t know?
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
“Lord, what fools these mortals be.” – William Shakespear
So we get Ukraine to kill more Russians with our most fearsome missiles and most lethal, immoral ground ordinance while we cut and run from Kiev, rightly fearing the reprisals we’ve provoked. As they say, “to the last Ukrainian.”
The one fact that is central to the current situation is seldom, if ever, brought clearly to the public’s attention. Quite simply, neither the US nor Russia have any way of determining whether incoming missiles entering their countries are armed with conventional or nuclear warheads.
Therefore, for one nuclear power to be a party to firing missiles into another nuclear power’s country creates a dangerously ambiguous situation, and is an act of jaw-droppingly reckless stupidity.
The question that must be answered is how can any country pretend to be a democracy when a party that has been rejected by its electorate can nonetheless legally, although without a mandate, undertake such a monstrous act?
Proof beyond a reasonable doubt the US is the world’s biggest terrorist state. The entire population of planet earth is held hostage by a mentally impaired career political hack who has enriched himself and his family through graft and corruption. And there’s nothing we can do to stop him? We need a better system if we survive long enough to create one.
Things may soon get too hot for us to handle thanks to that embittered old crook Joe Biden. Maybe because he knows he hasn’t long left he’s decided to bring his last day forward a little so we can all die on the same day he does.
Michael: Certainly possible. The man has never been anything. And now he is less. He ends as he always was.
Right, Michael. « We will all go together when we go. » —Tom Lehrer
It wouldn’t be the first time leaders of populations have gone batshit crazy and utterly destroyed what people naively assumed would last forever.
I see the Biden move as thoughtlessly spiteful and true to character. At his age and after all the things he’s done perhaps he’s just eager to shed his mortal coil. “If I can’t have her, no-one can” springs to mind.
At least we’re all priviledged to be able to witness such momentous history in the making. Future historians will chop off parts of their bodies just to be able to come back to this time and witness what *really* happened…unless that’s them in the glowing orbs of light, of course!…nowadays I wouldn’t be surprised. *wink*
I’ve lived through the threat of imminent nuclear war before and it was depressing AF. I refuse to fear the inevitable entropy of my life once again.