Antiwar literary and philosophical selections

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Transformation
August 29, 2014

NATO Naval Task Force Makes Port Call in Hampton Roads

For the first time in several years, a NATO task force is conducting transatlantic operations in North America.

Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 (SNMG2) arrived August 26 for a port visit during their Western Atlantic deployment.

This is part of a series of training exercises conducted in conjunction with Amphibious Readiness Group and Marine Expeditionary Unit Exercises (ARG/MEU EX). The group includes SNMG2’s flagship, the U.S. ship USS Leyte Gulf (CG 55), the German ship FGS Niedersachsen (F208) and the Turkish ship TCG Kemalreis (F 247). Kemalreis is the first Turkish warship to visit the United States in 15 years. Earlier in the deployment, it was also the first Turkish ship to ever visit Canada.

While here in Hampton Roads, SNMG2 will coordinate with representatives from Carrier Strike Group 4 to prepare for upcoming exercises and meet the local military and civilian leadership. Sailors from the three ships will also get the opportunity to explore the local area.

“We don’t get to come over here and exercise the transatlantic part of the Alliance as often as we should,” said SNMG2 Commander, U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Brad Williamson during a press conference aboard the Kemalreis. “If you notice, it doesn’t say Europe in NATO, it says the Atlantic.

To be able to come over here and work with the Canadian Navy and the U.S. Navy together with our Turkish and German allies, it’s a rare opportunity to do that.”

NATO itself already has a permanent headquarters in Norfolk with Allied Command Transformation (ACT) which is the only NATO headquarters located outside of Europe, and is home to more than 750 NATO military and civilian staff members.

“The deployment of NATO ships to this part of the world strengthens the transatlantic bond between North America and Europe,” said French Air Force General Jean-Paul Paloméros, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT). “An interoperable maritime force that enables navies from different nations to come together to execute missions on behalf of the Alliance is vital for the security of all. SNMG2 is leading the way in NATO achieving our goal of creating a cohesive and effective Naval force,” he said.

SNMG2 is permanently available to NATO to perform a wide range of tasks, from real world operations to exercise participation. Composition of the force varies as Allied nations contribute assets on a rotational basis.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

American writers on peace and against war

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Charles Yale Harrison: Bombardment, maniacal congealed hatred

Charles Yale Harrison: This is called an artillery duel

Charles Yale Harrison: Two kinds of people in the world, those who like wars and those who fight them

Charles Yale Harrison: War and really murdering someone

Charles Yale Harrison: War is a hell that no god, however cruel, would fashion for his most deadly enemies

Charles Yale Harrison: War’s snarling, savage beasts

Charles Yale Harrison: War’s whispered reminder, you must come back to my howling madness

Charles Yale Harrison: We have learned who our enemies are

Charles Yale Harrison: Who can comfort whom in war? The mother of the man who died at the end of my bayonet

Stars and Stripes
August 29, 2014

Anatomy of an attack: A step by step fictional siege in Saber Junction
By Michael Darnell

HOHENFELS, Germany: More than 5,800 troops from 13 NATO and four partner nations are participating in Saber Junction 14, an annual U.S. Army Europe-led training exercise spread across four countries.

The bulk of the American forces involved in this year’s exercise comes from the Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team and the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade, while troops from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Sweden and Ukraine make up the non-NATO forces involved.

The training began Aug. 25 at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, with a simulated attack on the fictional town of Boyat.

The attack came from the northeast, heralded only by a single mortar blast. The townsfolk scattered as the sound of gunfire erupted from a wooded ridge 800 meters from the town border. Suddenly, a line of armored vehicles bursts into sight.

Capt. Aljosa Kaucevic, commander of the 1st Company, 20th Infantry Regiment, Slovenian armed forces, was one of the soldiers tasked with the defense of the shantytown.

“In the morning, once we entered the town, we first did a key leader engagement with the local leaders, where the mayor, police chief and the other elders were present. We talked about the situation. I informed them that there is an imminent threat from the Aranian forces — the enemies in this exercise — and that we’re here to provide them security and defend their town.”

In order to do that, Kaucevic’s soldiers had to repel an attack from the JMRC opposing forces team consisting largely of American and Lithuanian infantrymen. Soldiers from both sides wore MILES gear — the Army’s high-tech laser tag system.

U.S. Army instructors tossed flashbang grenades to simulate artillery strikes and grenade launches.

Casualties were marked both with a high-pitched whine from the MILES gear and a laminated card informing comrades of the type of injury that needed to be treated. All throughout the scenario, the Slovenian soldiers had to keep the town’s civilian population — all wearing their own MILES harnesses — alive.

“We accomplished the mission, which was to defend the town against the Aranian attack and to protect the civilian population. We were able to do both, so I view it as a success,” Kaucevic said. “I know as a company and everybody involved that we definitely gained some additional experience here because of the very real situation that has been projected from the civilians on the battlefield and the OPFOR. There is always room for improvement. You never do it perfectly, but I’m proud of my men.”

Saber Junction 14 continues with air-assault missions and mechanized unit rotations through the middle of September, leading up to a massive simulated force-on-force battle.

Xinhua News Agency
August 30, 2014

Norwegian tanks to join NATO exercise in eastern Latvia: media

OSLO: Norway tanks will take part in a NATO exercise to be held in Latvia near the border with Russia, the Norwegian newspaper VG reported on Friday.

In addition, 190 Norwegian soldiers will participate in the exercise.

…

The exercise is scheduled to last for almost two months and ends in late November.

Last June, 10 NATO member countries staged the Saber Strike ground forces exercise in the the Baltic countries amid heightened tensions between Ukraine and Russia.

The war game, which involved nearly 5,000 troops, was reportedly seen by Russia as a NATO military build-up

Civil Georgia
August 30, 2014

U.S. Secretary of Defense to Visit Georgia

Tbilisi: After participating in the NATO summit in Wales on September 4-5, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will visit Georgia and Turkey, the Pentagon said on Friday.

“From Wales, the secretary will next travel to Georgia, one of the United States’ and NATO’s most important and capable partners,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said.

“The Georgian military has been a valued partner of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the secretary looks forward to thanking the Georgian people for their contributions and sacrifices over the last decade,” he said.

“Obviously, Georgia shares our concerns about Russia’s actions in Ukraine, and that will, of course, be at the top of his agenda during that visit,” the Pentagon spokesperson said.

It will be Hagel’s first visit to Georgia as Defense Secretary. He met Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Alasania twice at the Pentagon since August, 2013.

National Radio Company of Ukraine
August 29, 2014

Rasmussen says Ukraine can get NATO membership

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said that Ukraine has the right to decide its military political status.

“We fully respect Ukraine’s decisions as regards Ukraine’s security policy and alliance affiliation,” he said in Brussels on Friday, commenting on the Ukrainian government’s decision to lay before parliament a bill resuming the country’s course towards the Euro-Atlantic integration. “I am not going to interfere with political discussions in Ukraine, but let me remind you of NATO’s decision taken at the Bucharest summit in 2008, according to which Ukraine will become a member of NATO provided, of course, that Ukraine so wishes and provided that Ukraine fulfills the necessary criteria,” he added.
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Interfax-Ukraine
August 30, 2014

Batkivschyna initiates all-Ukrainian referendum on NATO’s membership on Oct 26 – Tymoshenko
 

Batkivschyna leader Yulia Tymoshenko has said that Batkivschyna All-Ukrainian Union is going to launch procedures necessary to carry a nationwide referendum on NATO’s membership.

According to Tymoshenko, the referendum is planned to be held on the same day as the parliamentary elections, on October 26, she told the journalists in Kyiv on Saturday.

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Interfax-Ukraine
August 30, 2014

Kyiv doesn’t ask West to send troops but expects military-technological aid – Poroshenko
 

Ukraine expects the international community to provide it with military-technological assistance rather than foreign military personnel, says Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

“We don’t expect that soldiers from other countries will be fighting in Ukraine…,” Poroshenko said at a news conference following a meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels on Saturday.

At the same time, Ukraine expects “military-technological assistance from the international community,” Poroshenko said.

“Military-technological cooperation, cooperation in exchanging intelligence, and other aspects are certainly a subject of both bilateral consultations, which are taking place in Brussels today, and the president’s position at the NATO summit to take place in early September,” he said.

Ukraine also expects assistance in the form of non-lethal weapons and equipment, and the EU has expressed its willingness to provide such assistance, Poroshenko said.

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http://www.ukrinform.ua/eng/news/poroshenko_in_brussels_says_ukraine_will_ratify_association_agreement_in_september_325787

Ukrinform
August 30, 2014

Poroshenko in Brussels says Ukraine will ratify Association Agreement in September

KYIV:  President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko assured the European leaders that the Verkhovna Rada will ratify the Association Agreement with the EU in September.

The head of the Ukrainian state said after a meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels on Saturday, a Ukrinform correspondent reported.

“During the meeting, I assured that the Verkhovna Rada will ratify the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement in September, as we agreed before,” Poroshenko said.

He recalled that ratification would allow the Ukrainian side to begin the temporary application of the provisions of a deep and comprehensive free trade area from November 1, 2014.

…

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

American writers on peace and against war

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Edward Bellamy
From Looking Backwards (1888)

Dr. Leete ceased speaking, and I remained silent, endeavoring to form some general conception of the changes in the arrangements of society implied in the tremendous revolution which he had described.

Finally I said, “The idea of such an extension of the functions of government is, to say the least, rather overwhelming.”

“Extension!” he repeated, “where is the extension?”

“In my day,” I replied, “it was considered that the proper functions of government, strictly speaking, were limited to keeping the peace and defending the people against the public enemy, that is, to the military and police powers.”

“And, in heaven’s name, who are the public enemies?” exclaimed Dr. Leete. “Are they France, England, Germany, or hunger, cold, and nakedness? In your day governments were accustomed, on the slightest international misunderstanding, to seize upon the bodies of citizens and deliver them over by hundreds of thousands to death and mutilation, wasting their treasures the while like water; and all this oftenest for no imaginable profit to the victims. We have no wars now, and our governments no war powers, but in order to protect every citizen against hunger, cold, and nakedness, and provide for all his physical and mental needs, the function is assumed of directing his industry for a term of years. No, Mr. West, I am sure on reflection you will perceive that it was in your age, not in ours, that the extension of the functions of governments was extraordinary. Not even for the best ends would men now allow their governments such powers as were then used for the most maleficent.”

U.S. Department of Defense
August 27, 2014

DoD Announces Upcoming NATO, Maritime Exercises
By Amaani Lyle

WASHINGTON: Pentagon officials announced the start of two training exercises this month.

Exercise Combined Endeavor 2014 starts tomorrow and concludes Sept. 12. Exercise Northern Coasts 2014 starts Aug. 29 and ends Sept. 12.

Embarking on its 28th year, Combined Endeavor is a command, control, communications, and computer systems exercise involving 1,200 personnel from approximately 30 NATO and Partnership for Peace nations. It will operate at a main base with virtual forward bases for multi-national collaboration.

In the Baltic Sea, the annual maritime exercise Northern Coasts 2014 includes underwater mine, countermeasure and counter-improvised explosive device training. Forces from at least five countries will participate.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
August 29, 2014

NATO Secretary General statement after the extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission

We have just held an extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission, following the serious escalation of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. The meeting was held at Ukraine’s request.

…This is a blatant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. It defies all diplomatic efforts for a peaceful solution.

Today, we expressed strong solidarity with Ukraine. At the Wales Summit next week, we will meet President Poroshenko to make clear NATO’s unwavering support for Ukraine.

We condemn in the strongest terms Russia’s continued disregard of its international obligations. We urge Russia to cease its illegal military actions, stop its support to armed separatists, and take immediate and verifiable steps towards de-escalation of this grave crisis.

Rustavi 2
August 29, 2014

Georgian PM expects adequate response from NATO

The Georgian Prime Minister says the government of Georgia is expecting adequate response from the NATO member nations at the upcoming summit in Wales. According to Irakli Gharibashvili, the government worked hard during the past two years to achieve maximum effect and therefore, they expect adequate response to the work done.

`The package has been worked out. We, the government, have done our best. We were all involved and I was personally involved in the intensive work for reaching the maximum effect. Of course, the conjuncture should be also considered because the Europeans pay great attention to this. We have full support and finally, we are expecting adequate response,` Irakli Gharibashvili said.

Interfax-Ukraine
August 29, 2014

Ukraine plans to step back onto path towards NATO membership – PM Yatseniuk

The Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers has submitted a bill repealing the country’s non-bloc status to the Verkhovna Rada.

“In accordance with the decision adopted by the National Security and Defense Council, the government of Ukraine has submitted a bill that repeals the Ukrainian state’s non-bloc status and re-establishes Ukraine’s course towards membership in NATO to parliament for consideration,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said at a government session on Friday.

According to Yatseniuk, the law permits Ukraine to take decisions on membership of any other economic, political and military units as long as they don’t contradict the main aim of Ukraine – membership of the European Union.

He also said that after this law is adopted, Ukraine will be banned from being a member of the Customs Union, the Eurasian Union, or other similar so-called unions, which in fact are just “the Soviet Union under the name of the Russian Federation.”

“We ask the president of Ukraine and Ukrainian parliament to consider it [the bill] urgent, as it [has been deemed so] by the National Security and Defense Council,” the premier said.

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Ukrinform
August 29, 2014

NATO not against Ukraine’s accession – Rasmussen

KYIV: NATO will respect and recognize Ukraine’s possible decision to cancel its non-aligned status and join this military-political alliance.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said this on Friday, a Ukrinform correspondent in Brussels reported.

“We fully respect Ukraine’s decisions as regards Ukraine’s security policy and alliance affiliation… Ukraine will become a member of NATO provided, of course, that Ukraine so wishes and provided that Ukraine fulfills the necessary criteria,” he said, recalling the decision taken at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008.

As reported, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said that the Ukrainian government had submitted for consideration by parliament a draft law cancelling the neutral status of the Ukrainian state and resuming Ukraine’s course towards NATO membership.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

George Gissing: Selections on war

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George Gissing

From The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903)

Some one, I see, is lifting up his sweet voice in praise of Conscription. It is only at long intervals that one reads this kind of thing in our reviews or newspapers, and I am happy in believing that most English people are affected by it even as I am, with the sickness of dread and of disgust. That the thing is impossible in England, who would venture to say? Every one who can think at all sees how slight are our safeguards against that barbaric force in man which the privileged races have so slowly and painfully brought into check. [T]he revival of monarchic power based on militarism, makes the prospect dubious enough. There has but to arise some Lord of Slaughter, and the nations will be tearing at each other’s throats. Let England be imperilled, and Englishmen will fight; in such extremity there is no choice. But what a dreary change must come upon our islanders if, without instant danger, they bend beneath the curse of universal soldiering! I like to think that they will guard the liberty of their manhood even beyond the point of prudence.

****

Near a hamlet, in a lonely spot by a woodside, I came upon a little lad of perhaps ten years old, who, his head hidden in his arms against a tree trunk, was crying bitterly. I asked him what was the matter, and, after a little trouble – he was better than a mere bumpkin – I learnt that, having been sent with sixpence to pay a debt, he had lost the money. The poor little fellow was in a state of mind which in a grave man would be called the anguish of despair; he must have been crying for a long time; every muscle in his face quivered as if under torture, his limbs shook; his eyes, his voice, uttered such misery as only the vilest criminal should be made to suffer. And it was because he had lost sixpence!

I could have shed tears with him – tears of pity and of rage at all this spectacle implied. On a day of indescribable glory, when earth and heaven shed benedictions upon the soul of man, a child, whose nature would have bidden him rejoice as only childhood may, wept his heart out because his hand had dropped a sixpenny piece! The loss was a very serious one, and he knew it; he was less afraid to face his parents, than overcome by misery at the thought of the harm he had done them. Sixpence dropped by the wayside, and a whole family made wretched! What are the due descriptive terms for a state of “civilization” in which such a thing as this is possible?

Stars and Stripes
August 28, 2014

German general becomes first non-US USAREUR chief of staff
By Matt Millham
For the first time since U.S. troops arrived in Europe during World War II, a German general will serve as chief of staff of U.S. Army Europe.

WIESBADEN, Germany: U.S. Army Europe formally welcomed German Brig. Gen. Markus Laubenthal as its new chief of staff Thursday, beginning what one German official said would likely be the first of many such exchanges between the U.S. and German armies.

Since USAREUR was established after World War II, a foreign officer has never served as chief of staff of the three-star command, headed since late 2012 by U.S. Lt. Gen. Donald M. Campbell Jr.

Laubenthal’s role in the organization will be much more than symbolic, Campbell said, though U.S. law precludes his successor from seeing some classified information that American officers in the same position would be able to access.

As the U.S. and NATO allies draw down from Afghanistan, military leaders have emphasized the need to continue to work together to maintain the interoperability the various forces have gained over more than a decade of war.

“As we all know, actions speak louder than words,” Campbell said, “and this innovation carries a very strong message regarding our seriousness about a multinational team.”

One U.S. official said it’s estimated that Laubenthal will be able to carry out about 90 percent of the tasks typically performed by a USAREUR chief of staff, who is directly responsible for organizing, directing and supporting roughly 30 senior leaders who make up the command’s staff.

While Laubenthal’s assignment is a first for the German military and USAREUR, Campbell played down its novelty.

The U.S. has been at war alongside Germany and other NATO and partner nations for 13 years, he said, “so having a multinational general on our staff is not really something new, because they’ve seen it in theater, they’ve seen it in combat.

“In fact, I had a Canadian deputy commanding general at III Corps and Fort Hood,” Campbell said. “And we have other multinational officers in service in the United States and in U.S. Army Pacific.”

To those who might question the move, Campbell said: “I would step back and take a look at what we’ve been doing in combat for the last 13 years. We don’t fight it alone, we don’t go alone.”

…

“What we saw today is really a kickoff,” German Lt. Gen. Jörg Vollmer said after a ceremony at Clay Kaserne welcoming Laubenthal.

Vollmer, the second in command of the German army, said that the Germans are open to assigning an American officer to a similar position within the German army.

Campbell said he first approached the German army’s chief of staff about putting a German general on the USAREUR staff in January 2013, soon after he took command and well before revelations of U.S. spying on Germans came to light. Campbell said he wants to “continue to look for ways that we can grow from this position and use it to leap to other positions at junior grades.”

Laubenthal, who most recently served as a German tank brigade commander and chief of staff for NATO’s Regional Command North in Afghanistan, said he’s a “true believer in the idea of organizing and training” as you would deploy in a military campaign.

“It’s really, really important to work with other nations together as close as you can and even before an operation starts,” he said.

Ukrinform
August 28, 2014

Ukraine asks for large-scale military aid from EU

KYIV: Ukraine has called on the EU to hold an extraordinary session of the European Council on August 30 to introduce further sanctions against the Ukrainian side and provide large-scale military assistance to Ukraine…

Ukraine’s representative to the European Union Kostiantyn Yeliseyev said this on Thursday, a Ukrinform correspondent in Brussels reported.

“Ukraine and the European Union must stop this war. We call for the holding on August 30 of an extraordinary session of the European Council on Ukraine. Enough concessions and pacification to the aggressor! Solidarity should be absolute and unequivocal. It should be materialized into further definite and substantial sanctions, as well as large-sale military and military-technical assistance to Ukraine to stop the aggressor,” he said.

According to Yeliseyev, now is the time when deeds must be replaced by words.

He recalled that since the beginning of Russian military aggression in February, the European Council had adopted 11 conclusions on Ukraine and that the European Parliament had adopted four resolutions calling on Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

“Was not it enough to understand that words mean nothing to the Kremlin?” Yeliseyev said.

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Interfax-Ukraine
August 27, 2014

Kyiv needs NATO help – Yatseniuk

The Ukrainian government plans to endorse a Ukraine-NATO action program for 2014 at its Wednesday session, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said.

“The government will endorse a Ukraine-NATO annual action program today. The president of Ukraine will be present at the NATO summit. NATO is our partner, and we expect our western partners and the alliance to offer practical assistance and to make momentous decisions at the summit on September 4. We need help,” Yatseniuk said at a government meeting on Wednesday.

RIA Novosti
August 28, 2014

Russia Sees NATO as Partner, Does Nothing to Oppose Alliance’s Baltic Deployment – Expert
Lyudmila Chernova

WASHINGTON: The deployment of NATO forces to new bases in Eastern Europe could have been seen coming as Russia did nothing to oppose the move, and instead refers to the alliance and its member states as “esteemed colleagues,” believes Rick Rozoff, manager of the Stop NATO international network.

“The reason why this has occurred is because the Russian government has done nothing to oppose it – not even verbally – instead regularly referring to NATO and its member states as Russia’s ‘valued partners,’ ‘esteemed colleagues,’ etc., etc., ad nauseam,” Rozoff told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

Rozoff underlined that the United States and NATO already have bases, including air bases, in most of the seven nations absorbed into NATO in 2004 at the NATO summit in Istanbul, Turkey: Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

“They also have control of air bases in Hungary and Poland. The air bases in Lithuania and Estonia allow NATO warplanes to strike Russia’s two largest cities in a matter of mere minutes,” Rozoff said.

Next week, NATO members are scheduled to meet in Wales to discuss the alliance’s response to Russia, which it accuses of interfering in Ukrainian affairs.

Earlier, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told European journalists that the alliance intends to deploy forces in Eastern Europe in response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and to counter the threat posed by Russia to the Baltic republics, which were previously part of the Soviet Union.

On Sunday, Germany’s Der Spiegel reported that Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia felt threatened by Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and feared what they described as Russian aggression.

Ahead of the NATO summit at the end of next week, the four countries have urged the military bloc to mention Moscow as a potential aggressor in its summit communique.

Russia’s Permanent Mission to NATO told RIA Novosti on Monday that Moscow has no plans to participate in any activities during the NATO summit in Wales.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Robert Graves: Selections on war

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Robert Graves
From Good-Bye to All That (1929)

We packed a few things and rode off in the general direction of Devon. The nights were coldish and, not having brought any blankets, we bicycled by night and slept by day. We rode across Salisbury Plain in the moonlight, passing Stonehenge and several deserted Army camps which had an even more ghostly look. They could provide accommodations for a million men: the number killed in the British and Overseas Forces during the War. Finding ourselves near Dorchester, we turned aside to visit Thomas Hardy…

***

My mother had me take the trouble to call on the Rector when she viewed the property, and he later asked me to speak from the chancel steps of the village church at a War Memorial service. He suggested that I should read war-poems. But instead of Rupert Brooke on the glorious dead, I read some of the more painful poems by Sassoon and Wilfred Owen about men dying from gas-poisoning, and about buttocks of corpses bulging from the mud. I also suggested that the men who had died, destroyed as it were by the fall of the Tower of Siloam, were not particularly virtuous or particularly wicked, but just average soldiers, and that the survivors should thank God they were alive, and do their best to avoid wars in the future. Though the Church party, apart from the liberal-minded Rector, professed to be scandalized, the ex-service men had not been too well treated on their return, and liked to be told that they stood on equal terms with the glorious dead. They were modest men: I noticed that though respecting the King’s desire to wear their campaign medals on this occasion, they kept them buttoned up inside their coats.

Interfax-Ukraine
August 27, 2014

Kyiv needs NATO help – Ukrainian PM

KYIV: The Ukrainian government plans to endorse a Ukraine-NATO action program for 2014 at its Wednesday session, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said.

“The government will endorse a Ukraine-NATO annual action program today. The president of Ukraine will be present at the NATO summit. NATO is our partner, and we expect our western partners and the alliance to offer practical assistance and to make momentous decisions at the summit on September 4. We need help,” Yatsenyuk said at a government meeting on Wednesday.

Finnish Broadcasting Company
August 27, 2014

Finland, Sweden edge closer to NATO host nation status

Finland and Sweden are expanding their cooperation with NATO. Defence Minister Carl Haglund told Yle on Wednesday that the government plans to sign an agreement on a new type of partnership at next week’s NATO summit in Wales.

The Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet says that the Swedish government will likely decide on Thursday to approve a so-called host nation support agreement with the North Atlantic military alliance NATO. Such a deal would allow the deployment of NATO rapid reaction forces on Swedish soil.

According to Swedish sources, the arrangement would allow NATO forces to use Swedish land, airspace and maritime territory while en route to operations. Sweden would guarantee the troops’ logistical and support operations. This could include providing them with food and ammunition.

Finland could request support in civilian crises

Speaking on Yle Radio 1 on Wednesday morning, former defence minister Seppo Kääriäinen said that Finland has been negotiating on its own host nation support agreement for a decade. The opposition Centre Party MP is now deputy chair of the parliamentary Defence Committee.

Under the envisaged wording, Finland would have the option of providing operational support to NATO forces in various kinds of crisis situations, including purely civilian situations, says Kääriäinen. He points out that Finland would always make the decision whether to request assistance.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Alexander Stubb told Yle that Finland will participate in the next NATO meeting in a different category than in the past, adding that “in concrete terms, it means to a great extent systems shared with NATO and with Sweden. We’re in a special status [as] partnerships are being reconsidered.”

NATO support ticks up

Meanwhile a poll published by Finland’s biggest paper, Helsingin Sanomat, on Wednesday suggests that more Finns now back the idea of full NATO membership.

According to the survey, 26 percent of respondents now support joining NATO – up from 22 percent in a corresponding poll last March. However a strong majority – 57 percent – still say no to membership, with 17 percent undecided.

Sources Yle, Svenska Dagbladet, Helsingin Sanomat

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 26, 2014

NATO’s Eastern Members To Get NATO Troop Rotations

NATO says it is planning constantly manned facilities in NATO-member countries that are east of what formerly was the iron curtain.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in an interview published on August 26 in Britain’s “The Guardian” newspaper that plans call for “a more visible NATO presence in the East.”

Rasmussen said NATO forces other than those from the NATO-member host countries would be rotated at “very high frequency” so that “any potential aggressor” would know an attack would target the entire NATO alliance.

He said the initiative would include positioning supplies to boost NATO’s rapid reaction capabilities.

Poland and the three Baltic states — all NATO members — have called for a stronger NATO presence after Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.

NATO currently maintains a headquarters at Szczecin, near Poland’s Baltic coast.

The Local
August 27, 2014

Goverment keen on Nato forces in Sweden

Nato will soon be able to deploy military forces to Sweden with the government likely to sign an agreement with the military alliance this week, but an expert told The Local that full membership remains unlikely.

Defence Minister Karin Enström told the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper that the decision could be approved on Thursday. The move follows months of speculation after the Swedish military requested the government to discuss the matter with Nato last autumn.

Talks are believed to now be complete with both Sweden and Nordic neighbours Finland set to sign up to the deal.

Under the ‘host country agreement’ Nato would be able to carry out military training in Sweden. The agreement would also allow a guarantee that transportation of troops by land, air or sea could be carried out safely.

“We have come very far and it may be a government decision on Thursday,” Enström told the newspaper.

Enström said that the agreement would mean that Nato would not be able to deploy in Sweden against the government’s wishes.

The decision is unlikely to be a precursor to Sweden signing up to become a fully-fledged member of the alliance according to the National Defence College (Försvarshögskolan).

“This is really a case of Sweden wanting to show that they have done their homework and have something to show at the Nato summit in Wales next month,” Magnus Christensson, military strategist at the defence college told The Local.

He added; “Sweden is part of a frontrunner group discussing enhanced opportunities within Nato and this agreement is a part of that. I don’t think we can say this is the latest step to full membership but Sweden is certainly becoming closer to Nato.”

Election favourites the Social Democrats have long been opposed to joining the military alliance. Christensson said Nato wouldn’t be an election issue as he felt none of the parties had anything to gain by making it a topic at the polls.

“In order for Sweden to become a full member of Nato there would need to be a serious threat and right now Russia is making a case for that. Being outside would also need to come at a cost and the Social Democrats would need to change their attitude on the matter completely.”

Sweden has participated in Nato operations since the Bosnian war in the early nineties. In March The Local reported that over a thousand Swedish troops participated in a Nato training exercise close to the Russian border.

In a recent survey one in three Swedes support the prospect of the country joining Nato. Sweden is currently a Nato partner, not a member, will full membership long a bone of contention between the major political parties.

Press TV
August 27, 2014

US may use spy flights over Syria to help militants: Rick Rozoff

Audio

The United States may use its surveillance flights over Syria to gather intelligence information and provide it to pro-US militants, a peace activist says.

Rick Rozoff, manager of the Stop NATO international network, made the remarks during a phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday, after US President Barack Obama ordered reconnaissance flights over Syria to prepare for airstrikes on ISIL forces inside the country.

He said that Obama’s authorization of carrying out surveillance flights over Syrian territory “adds another dimension to the US involvement in the ongoing conflict in Syria.”

Rozoff stated that the US is involved in similar activities in Yemen, Somalia and Libya and “one cannot be assured that the United States is not gathering intelligence information for purposes others than strictly striking” ISIL militants “and that the US is not accumulating intelligence which can be provided on the ground to terrorist formations supported by the US, its NATO allies and select (Persian) Gulf states.”

“That’s the first concern that any reasonable person would have,” he stated, adding that the second concern is “the US supposedly bombing, with or without the permission from the government in Damascus, alleged extremist sites inside Syria as well Iraq may while they’re at it” target Syrian government installations.

Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. According to reports, the Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey — are supporting the militants operating inside Syria.

“What we have to worry about is that if the US, either with the approval of Damascus or without it, begins the campaign of surveilling ISIL forces on the ground, it could get out of hands, and the US can certainly overstep its mandate as it has known to be done,” he noted.

“So we have this added degree of danger following the duplicity of US involvement in Syria. The best thing, of course, is the US should stay out of the Middle East entirely,” Rozoff emphasized.

The ISIL has captured large swaths of territory across northern Iraq after seizing the city of Mosul on June 10.

The militants, who have posted pictures of their atrocious acts against Iraqi citizens online, have vowed to continue their offensive towards Baghdad.

However, the United States has used the situation as a pretext to increase its military presence in the Arab country and the Middle East region and exert pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to form what Washington calls an “inclusive government”.

A recent report shows that the ISIL terrorists were trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012. The report said that the militants were initially trained at the time as part of covert aid to the militants operating inside Syria.

Ministry of Defense of Georgia
August 26, 2014

“Defence Integrated Program” Revision

“Defence Integrated Program” 2015-2018 was reviewed at Defence Ministry of Georgia today. Deputy Defence Ministers Mikheil Darchiashvili and Alex Batiashvili led the meeting. Deputy Chief of General Staff of the GAF, Colonel Giorgi Kbiltsetskhlashvili and the representatives from the various structural units of the MoD attended the meeting as well.

The meeting aimed to prioritize the programs, subprograms and program elements of “Defence Integrated Program”, as well as to define estimated budget.

Mikheil Darchiashvili highlighted the importance of programming budget in the direction of transparency and NATO interoperability. He also outlined that the successful fulfillment of the process under NATO commitments will be a significant step forward.

The representatives of the various departments form the MoD and General Staff presented to the top brass the program budget calculations of 2015, plans for development and priorities according to the directions of their supervisor.

Deputy Defence Minister Alex Batiashvili summed up the meeting. He evaluated the progress achieved in the direction of resource management reformation and emphasized the importance of rational and effective allocation of financial resources.

“Defence Integrated Program” was elaborated for the first time. The document will be the basis for the development of defence program for 2015 and coming years. The program aims to develop defence resource planning system accordingly western standards and principles. The program budget is one of NATO’s main demands. CUBICs officials and experts from other partner countries headed by Bill Craven consulted the MoD representatives while elaborating the “Integrated Defense Program”.

Ministry of Defence of Georgia
August 27, 2014

Defence Minister meets the Georgian Company deployed in Central African Republic

Minister of Defence of Georgia Irakli Alasania pays an official visit to the Central African Republic. Among the delegation members are Chief of the General Staff of GAF Major-General Vakhtang Kapanadze and Deputy Minister Varlam Avaliani.

The MoD leadership met Batumi Separate Light Infantry Battalion personnel fulfilling the peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic under the aegis of EU. The Battalion members thoroughly informed the visitors about the situation on the ground and the tasks being performed by them. Irakli Alasania and Major General Vakhtang Kapanadze addressed the military and stressed attention on the importance of the mission. Minister wished the soldiers successful accomplishment of the mission and safe return to the motherland.

Within the frames of the visit to the Central African Republic, meetings are scheduled with the Chief of UN peacekeeping operations and UN Secretary General`s Special Representative.

Batumi Separate Light Infantry Battalion was deployed to the Central African Republic in June. The Georgian solders are fulfilling the mission in Bangi city. The aim of the mission is to provide security and stability in the area of responsibility. The Company also carries out patrolling at the nearby area of the Airport.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Russian writers on war

Maxim Gorky: Selections on war

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Maxim Gorky
From The Specter (1938)
Translated by Alexander Bakshy

“You must not be offended, Mr. Creighton, but of course you realize that the English are not very well liked, and deservedly so. A hundred and two years ago, at Waterloo, your soldiers finally extinguished the blaze of the French Revolution. You take pride in this dubious service to a Europe which you prevented from becoming united states. For I am convinced that exactly that union was Napoleon’s objective. During these hundred years you, ‘an aristocratic race,’ the nation of compromise, the people of unsurpassed hypocrisy and supreme indifference to the fate of Europe, you, the amusingly conceited people, have succeeded in enslaving so many nations that it is said five Indians work for every Englishman – and this is exclusive of others whom you have enslaved.”

***

“I knew an Arab scholar once, who said: ‘An Englishman in Europe is a fox; in the colonies he is the beast which no name fits.’ You regard the Germans as highwaymen and brutes. But it was your government which helped the Prussians to rout the French, which supported them against Austria, which supported Bismarck…”

U.S. Air Forces in Europe
U.S. Air Forces Africa
August 26, 2014

Deployed Airmen conclude operations at Powidz AB, Poland
By Staff Sgt. Jarad A. Denton
USAFE/AFAFRICA Public Affairs

POWIDZ AIR BASE, Poland: With a flurry of grass and dirt, a C-130J Super Hercules touched down on a grass runway at Powidz Air Base, Poland, kicking off its final week of deployed operations within the country, Aug. 25, 2014.

For more than 75 Airmen deployed from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, this was their home-away-from-home for 60 days.

“Throughout this deployment the Airmen here represented America’s forward presence, postured alongside our proven, indispensable European partners,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Barry King II, 37th Airlift Squadron detachment commander at Powidz. “The visible support we bring to Europe allows us to strengthen our interoperability through regular combined training exercises.”

During their time in Poland, Airmen honed their operational skills and worked together to ensure the C-130’s were ready and able to conduct low-level flight training at improved and unimproved landing zones, as well as partner with U.S. Army and NATO Service members for cargo and personnel airdrops. Aircrews worked around-the-clock, generating 150 flying missions that accounted for more than 330 hours in the air.

“This has been a tremendous opportunity for our Airmen to demonstrate their shared commitment to peace and regional security, alongside our NATO partners,” said King. “Since 2012, the 37th Airlift Squadron has held training events like this in Poland. We are proud and honored to continue the tradition.”

…

“Our time in Poland has afforded us a unique opportunity to conduct training focused on maintaining joint readiness, ensuring our collective security and protecting our global interests,” said King. “The benefits of training with other nations in deployed locations, like Poland, far outweigh the benefits that come from training independently. The experience gained by our Airmen alone is absolutely essential to maintaining our commitment to a Europe that is whole, free and at peace.”

Rustavi 2
August 25, 2014

Working meeting with the President

The President of Georgia today held a preparatory meeting for the NATO Summit in Wales – the meeting was attended by Defence Minister Irakli Alasania, National security Secretary Irine Imerlishvili, Deputy Foreign Minister Davit Zalkaliani and State Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration Davit Dondua.

The President listened to the report by the senior officials regarding the preparatory activities.

The NATO Summit will be held in Wales on 4-5 September. The delegation of Georgia will be led by President Giorgi Margvelashvili.

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Rustavi 2
August 26, 2014

NATO does not recognize Abkhazia `elections`

The NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen has made a special statement regarding the so-called presidential elections held in Georgia`s breakaway Abkhazia last Sunday.

`NATO does not recognise the election held on 24 August in the Georgian region of Abkhazia. This election does not contribute to a peaceful and lasting settlement of the situation in Georgia. NATO Allies do not recognise the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions of Georgia as independent states.

The Alliance reiterates its full support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders`, the statement says.

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Rustavi 2
August 26, 2014

PM assigns Cabinet to assist Ukrainian colleagues

The Prime Minister of Georgia has assigned the Cabinet to provide maximum support to their colleagues in Ukraine. Irakli Gharibashvili addressed the ministers at the meeting of the government this morning.

`It will be reasonable if we provide humanitarian assistance to our Ukrainian friends,` Irakli Gharibashvili announced.

He also questioned Health Minister Sergeenko about the details of his decisions to take Georgian doctors to Ukraine. The delegation is due to leave for Kiev tomorrow and assist their colleagues in treating the people injured in the battles against the separatists.

Minister Sergeenko will be accompanied by the Chief of the Emergencies Department, Zurab Utiashvili.
Concurrently, several senior authorities, including the representatives of the Ministry of Finance are expected to arrive in Tbilisi. Georgian colleagues will share their experience of overcoming crisis in specific sectors.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Transformation
August 16, 2014

SACT Addresses Industry Leaders at “Going Global Defense Initiative” Event

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT), French Air Force General Jean-Paul Paloméros addressed industry and business representatives as keynote speaker at the Kick-off Workshop for Virginia’s Going Global Defense Initiative held in Norfolk, Virginia, August 14.

The Going Global Defense Initiative, launched by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP), is an effort to mitigate the impact that defence spending cuts have on Virginia’s economy. The VEDP focuses on assisting Virginia businesses in capturing export opportunities overseas.

Norfolk is home to Allied Command Transformation (ACT), the only permanent NATO headquarters located outside of Europe. The command oversees NATO’s military transformation ensuring the organisation is capable of effectively taking on future security challenges.

General Paloméros talked to the business leaders about cooperative effort of NATO and industry, and how their support for the Alliance was vital to ACT’s success, saying “the Allies recognise that in our current strategic context, we are facing new needs in terms of knowledge, no longer developed within the Defence realm. Today, Academia and Industry are leading in these areas of interests.”

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Air Command
August 26, 2014

ALLIANCE SOLIDARITY IN THE BALTIC REGION CONTINUES

Ramstein, GERMANY: As NATO’s current Baltic Air Policing (BAP) rotation draws to a close at the end of August, outgoing fighter detachments are working hard to prepare hand over responsibilities and tasks.

The 36th rotation of NATO’s Baltic Air Policing will commence in September with six Portuguese F-16 fighter aircraft deploying to Siauliai Air Base, Lithuania to execute the mission as the lead nation. Canada, Germany and The Netherlands will be augmenting the mission.

The official BAP handover/takeover ceremony will take place at Siauliai Air Base, Lithuania, on 1 September 2014. The outgoing nations; Poland, United Kingdom, Denmark and France will pass responsibility for the Baltic airspace to the four incoming nations.

Four Canadian CF-18s will operate from Siauliai Air Base alongside Portugal. Germany will deploy four Eurofighters to Ämari Air Base, Estonia, and the Netherlands will have four of its F-16s at Malbork Air Base, Poland. All assets will be used to ensure 24/7 availability of Quick Reaction Alert (Intercept) forces to secure the airspace over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

NATO’s BAP is a standing peacetime mission and has been conducted since April 2004. As the Baltic States do not have their own means to provide air policing of their territory, they have been assisted by other NATO members to preserve the integrity of their sovereign airspace in peacetime, and to ensure their collective security. So far, 14 NATO nations have supported this mission.

In line with NATO’s extensive assurance measures, Allies have offered additional assets under the NATO Air Policing framework since April 2014.

Story by HQ AIRCOM Public Affairs Office

The Hindu
August 26, 2014

An ode to NATO’s mission in Libya
Hari Narayan

On October 20, 2011, a low-resolution video shot in Sirte, Libya went viral. It showed a motley mob of about 20 mutineers shouting what sounded like insults at a 69-year-old Bedouin — their prized ‘catch’. The old man’s face was bloodied; he looked dumbfounded and was perhaps making an attempt to beg for mercy. Moments later, the aged captive was dead, his body used as a trophy.

The old, khaki-clad Bedouin was Muammar al-Qaddafi. Though both his life and his 42-year rule in Libya were marked by eccentricity, his death could not but evoke empathy. NATO’s mission creep — a spin-off from the powers granted to it by U.N. resolution 1973 — was complete.

Toppling Qaddafi by Christopher S. Chivvis — who was with Pentagon at that time and currently works for the U.S.-government-funded think tank RAND Corporation — is an ode to the intervention. Though it does express scepticism in a few chapters, its overall tone is one of approval and, at places, celebration. Long on technical details and short on depth, it reads more like a military template for future interventions than a genuine soul-searching effort.

Chivvis puts on the back-burner an honest attempt at understanding the uprising while expecting the reader to genuflect to the restraint practised by the U.S. as it decided to step back and allow France and Britain to dominate the mission. This, even as it supplied the bulk of the arms.

Some questions the book could have addressed include: Why did the rebels decide to script such a grisly death for Qaddafi — a patriarch clearly in his autumn? Was his overthrow the result of foreign conspiracy, considering that he had antagonised quite a lot of regimes due to his fiercely independent foreign policy? Was Libya really on the verge of genocide when the West decided to intervene?

A report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), Making sense of Libya (released on 6th June 2011, much after the intervention began), provides some answers. It revealed that the revolt’s original authors were not native Libyans in Benghazi but those from the Libyan diaspora, vocal opponents of Qaddafi’s style of functioning who had been responsible for his vilification in the western media.

Hugh Roberts, ICG’s North Africa Project Director during the uprising, gave a comprehensive analysis in his article, Who said Gaddafi had to go? (London Review of Books, November 17, 2011). The essay proves a sober counter to Chivvis’s celebratory monograph.

Roberts’s essay answers most of the questions Chivvis’s book doesn’t. In the Cold War years, Libya had been of strategic interest to the U.S. primarily because of its location along the coast of Mediterranean, providing it a vital link between Europe and North Africa and North Africa and West Asia. Up to the discovery of oil in 1960, the primary source of revenue for Libya was from the Wheelus Air Base, which was once called by a U.S. Ambassador as “a little America … on the sparkling shores of the Mediterranean.” Having once had about 4,600 Americans, it was rendered defunct once oil was discovered and a Qaddafi-led coup happened in 1969.

Roberts also deals with the minutiae when he points out that the conflict was more internecine than international — it was between the Arab villages and Berber hamlets; between militias from the mountains and those from the coast; and between the light-skinned Libyans and their black neighbours.

So, was Libya another Afghanistan where tribal identities triumphed over national ones? Or was it converted into an anarchy along Afghan lines post-intervention?

Dirk Vandewalle, in his book A history of modern Libya, expounds that just like many other countries in Africa, Libya was a creation of convenience for colonial powers. The United Kingdom of Libya was created in 1951 by integrating three distinct regions – Cyrenaica (east), Fezzan (southwest), and Tripolitania (west) — without a binding force.

Libyans had suffered vicious suppression at the hands of their Italian colonisers, who tried to create an extension of metropolitan Italy in Tripolitania, settling Italians while massacring natives. This only fostered tribal loyalties and created distrust toward political institutions.

Though Qaddafi’s interests lay in keeping Libya politically inactive, his government’s generous redistribution of oil revenues did create an effective welfare state. As per a UNICEF (2009) report, Libya had a literacy rate of 95 per cent for males and 78 per cent for females and a life expectancy of 74. It had a Human Development Index (HDI) ranking of 55, out of 182 countries considered, ahead of most sub-Saharan and many Asian countries.

It would be more persuasive to say that the Libyan civil war was a conflict created by history — between the culturally and economically disparate western and the eastern regions — best resolved politically by Libyans themselves, with diplomatic support from outside, which the ICG offered. However, NATO was more intent on scripting a change its way.

Chivvis is so absorbed in the details of NATO’s military manoeuvres that, even with the benefit of hindsight, he gets his facts entirely wrong. This becomes particularly bewildering in the final chapter, written when the negative repercussions of the intervention were being felt.

For instance, Chivvis still maintains that Qaddafi government killed “several hundred civilians” prior to the intervention. Hugh Roberts had invalidated this as early as 2011 by citing Human Rights Watch, which said that as late as on February 21, when the genocide bogey had reached its peak, the total death toll was 233. Compared to this, the total death toll in Tunisia was 300 and that in Egypt was 846.

Chivvis claims that the intervention offered hopes for protesters in the other conservative regimes in the region against brutal crackdown. This after the West chose to overlook protests in Bahrain — where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is stationed — when the Sunni-minority monarchy crushed the non-violent Shia demonstrators.

Chivvis also makes the ludicrous claim that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad would have suppressed his population earlier and more violently had NATO not intervened. He completely ignores the fact that it was NATO’s misadventure in Libya that strengthened al-Qaeda-linked elements in Syria. This in turn led to the birth of Islamic State (IS), an ultra-jihadist group that the U.S. is currently fighting in Iraq.

Chivvis occasionally engages in plainspeak. Like when he emphasises the positive fall-out of the intervention on the U.S. arms industry. Citing an unclassified document, he says that the U.S. went on to sell $261 million worth of ammunition and spare parts to its allies. This while ‘leading from behind!’

And, finally, he admits, in passing, the ambivalence the rebels gradually started to feel toward NATO’s intentions, when the latter started dictating the course of action. One of them even went on to question if NATO’s aims were ‘different’ to their own.

The ICG document proved to be prescient in its outlook when it said that with an escalation of hostilities, the outcome “… may be not a transition to democracy but rather a potentially prolonged vacuum … that could aggravate an already serious humanitarian crisis.”

About a year after Qaddafi’s death, another video, graphic in its details, emerged. It pertained to the death of Christopher Stevens, U.S. ambassador to Libya, killed when its consulate in Benghazi, the birthplace of Libya’s uprising, was attacked. A fringe terrorist organisation strengthened by the intervention, ansar al-Sharia was blamed. From one grisly murder to another, Libya’s faux-revolution had come a full circle.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

American writers on peace and against war

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Finley Peter Dunne
Member of the Anti-Imperialist League
From Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War (1898)

On War Preparations

“Well,” Mr. Hennessy asked, “how goes th’ war?”

“Splendid, thank ye,” said Mr. Dooley. “Fine, fine. It makes me hear-rt throb with pride that I’m a citizen iv th’ Sixth Wa-ard.”

“Has th’ ar-rmy started f’r Cuba yet?”

“Wan ar-rmy, says ye? Twinty! Las’ Choosdah an advance ar-rmy iv wan hundherd an’ twinty thousand men landed fr’m th’ Gussie, with tin thousand cannons hurlin’ projick-tyles weighin’ eight hundherd pounds sivinteen miles. Winsdah night a second ar-rmy iv injineers, miners, plumbers, an’ lawn tinnis experts, numberin’ in all four hundherd an’ eighty thousand men, ar-rmed with death-dealin’ canned goods, was hurried to Havana to storm th’ city.

“Thursdah mornin’ three thousand full rigimints iv r-rough r-riders swum their hor-rses acrost to Matoonzas, an’ afther a spirited battle captured th’ Rainy Christiny golf links, two up an’ hell to play, an’ will hold thim again all comers. Th’ same afthernoon th’ reg’lar cavalry, con-sistin’ iv four hundherd an’ eight thousan’ well-mounted men, was loaded aboord th’ tug Lucy J., and departed on their earned iv death amidst th’ cheers iv eight millyon sojers left behind at Chickamaha. These cav’lry’ll co-operate with Commodore Schlow; an’ whin he desthroys th’ Spanish fleet, as he does ivry Sundah an’ holy day except in Lent, an’ finds out where they ar-re an’ desthroys thim, afther batterin’ down th’ forts where they ar-re con-cealed so that he can’t see thim, but thinks they ar-re on their way f’r to fight Cousin George Dooley, th’ cav’lry will make a dash back to Tampa, where Gin’ral Miles is preparin’ to desthroy th’ Spanish at wan blow,–an’ he’s th’ boy to blow.

“The gin’ral arrived th’ other day, fully prepared f’r th’ bloody wurruk iv war. He had his intire fam’ly with him. He r-rode recklessly into camp, mounted on a superb specyal ca-ar. As himsilf an’ Uncle Mike Miles, an’ Cousin Hennery Miles, an’ Master Miles, aged eight years, dismounted fr’m th’ specyal train, they were received with wild cheers be eight millyon iv th’ bravest sojers that iver give up their lives f’r their counthry. Th’ press cinchorship is so pow’rful that no news is allowed to go out; but I have it fr’m th’ specyal corryspondint iv Mesilf, Clancy th’ Butcher, Mike Casey, an’ th’ City Direchtry that Gin’ral Miles instantly repaired himsilf to th’ hotel, where he made his plans f’r cr-rushin’ th’ Spanyards at wan blow. He will equip th’ ar-rmy with blow-guns at wanst. His uniforms ar-re comin’ down in specyal steel protected bullyon trains fr’m th’ mint, where they’ve been kept f’r a year. He has ordhered out th’ gold resarve f’r to equip his staff, numberin’ eight thousan’ men, manny iv whom ar-re clubmen; an’, as soon as he can have his pitchers took, he will cr-rush th’ Spanish with wan blow. Th’ purpose iv th’ gin’ral is to permit no delay. Decisive action is demanded be th’ people. An’, whin th’ hot air masheens has been sint to th’ front, Gin’ral Miles will strike wan blow that’ll be th’ damdest blow since th’ year iv th’ big wind in Ireland.

“Iv coorse, they’se dissinsions in th’ cabinet; but they don’t amount to nawthin’. Th’ Sicrety iv War is in favor iv sawin’ th’ Spanish ar-rmy into two-be-four joists. Th’ Sicrety iv th’ Three-asury has a scheme f’r roonin’ thim be lindin’ thim money. Th’ Sicrety iv th’ Navy wants to sue thim befure th’ Mattsachusetts Supreme Coort. I’ve heerd that th’ Prisident is arrangin’ a knee dhrill, with th’ idee iv prayin’ th’ villyans to th’ divvil. But these diff’rences don’t count. We’re all wan people, an’ we look to Gin’ral Miles to desthroy th’ Spanish with wan blow. Whin it comes, trees will be lifted out be th’ roots. Morro Castle’ll cave in, an’ th’ air’ll be full iv Spanish whiskers. A long blow, a sthrong blow, an’ a blow all together.”

“We’re a gr-reat people,” said Mr. Hennessy, earnestly.

“We ar-re,” said Mr. Dooley. “We ar-re that. An’ th’ best iv it is, we know we ar-re.”

U.S. Marine Corps
August 22, 2014

Platinum Lion: Multilateral exercise strengthens humanitarian response, combat readiness
By Sgt. Derrick K. Irions, Marine Corps Forces Africa

Novo Selo, Bulgaria: Following 11 days of unabated multilateral training, military forces from Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and the U.S. operated side-by-side during the final exercise of Platinum Lion 14-2 Aug. 11 at the Novo Selo Training Area, Bulgaria.

During the seven-hour humanitarian scenario, an escalating conflict between two socially-divided urban towns resulted in a deployment of peacekeeping entities.

Confusion, uprisings, chaos and casualties added to the realism and complexity of the exercise meant to evaluate the overall interoperability of the four participating nations.

“The exercise was based on a real-life event in Africa,” said Capt. Jordan Schultz, company commander with 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, referring to a similar peacekeeping operation that he and his Marines had prepared for in the past.

The final exercise began with a humanitarian scenario that required quick reaction times and precise maneuvers to resolve the ongoing strife, adding that the four nations performed their respective assignments at a level higher than anticipated, according to Schultz.

“There was a situation during the FEX when a rival villager attempted to infiltrate our village to tactically acquire some of our water,” said Cpl. Zachary Ruppert, the villager role player and a team leader with 3rd Bn., 8th Marines. “If it weren’t for the Romanians, who were providing a good security buffer, myself and the other villagers were going to hold him captive and threaten an attack on the opposing village in retaliation for stealing what little resources we had. The Romanians did exactly what the circumstance required. They detained the thief and defused the situation.”

The practical application exercise gave the participating units an opportunity to showcase the knowledge, techniques and tactics that were taught during the foregoing days.

Exercise Platinum Lion is an annually-scheduled engagement focused on enhancing regional stability and security through multilateral training including: combat life saver, non-lethal systems, fixed-site security and convoy operations.

Military engagements like Platinum Lion continue to bolster relations with regional ally and partner nations, enhance interoperability and provide the capability for contingency response in correlation with directives issued by U.S. European Command.

“This exercise is far from unimaginable, these types of engagements can and do actually happen,” said Ruppert. “This exercise offers each participating nation a chance to identify and address mistakes in a training environment rather than react to them in a real-world emergency situation where it could be the difference of life and death.”

U.S. Army
August 25, 2014

U.S. Army Europe conducts exercise Saber Junction
By U.S. Army Europe Public Affairs

WIESBADEN, Germany: Exercise Saber Junction, one of U.S. Army Europe’s premier training events, is scheduled to take place from today through Sept. 11, at several locations throughout Europe.

The exercise will include participation from 16 different nations, more than 5,800 personnel, and is designed to prepare U.S. and multinational Soldiers for decisive and sustainable land operations.

Saber Junction will feature a number of dynamic events designed to challenge the participants including airborne operations, conventional warfare scenarios as well stability and defensive operations, and support of civil authorities operations.

Multinational partners participating in this exercise include the following NATO allies: Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, United Kingdom, and the United States; and the following NATO Partnership for Peace nations: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Sweden.

This exercise demonstrates U.S. Army Europe’s commitment to the collective security of the nation’s NATO allies, and support for the United States’ partners in Europe.

U.S. Air Force
August 22, 2014

Romania air base replaces Transit Center Manas
By Staff Sgt. Shawn Nickel, Air Forces Central Public Affairs

MIHAIL KOGALNICEANU AIR BASE, Romania: “It’s so green here,” is often the first words uttered from service members as they step off an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III after arriving from Afghanistan or other deployed locations.

Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania, located 25 miles northwest of the Black Sea city of Constanta, started operations in February 2014 and has already processed more than 85,000 troops.

“It’s all about getting warfighters to the fight and getting them home when it’s all said and done,” stated U.S. Army Col. Ronald D. Brown Jr., the 21st Sustainment Command assistant chief of staff. “We’ve handled up to 2,000 Soldiers a day. Having a great relationship with our host nation in conjunction with taking what we’ve done in previous operations has streamlined it into what we have here.”

The ability to conduct operations at Kogalniceanu AB gives combatant commanders flexibility and responsiveness moving equipment, supplies and troops into and out of the U.S. European Command and U.S. Central Command areas of operations.

It takes an efficient team of almost 600 people, including approximately 140 Airmen, to sustain the operations, which has shipped more than 2,100 tons of baggage in addition to military equipment, served hundreds of thousands of meals and inspected almost 61,000 body armor plates.

…

The base has quickly become a favored location for Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, who have previously been to Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan…

…

Since only weeks after September 11, 2001, troops have passed to and from Afghanistan through Manas. Without a new lease in Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. was forced to find a new location to ferry troops. With an inter-service relationship and infrastructure already built in Romania, it quickly became the top choice for transit operations.

“The working relationship dynamic is absolutely amazing here; everybody works together very well,” Blea said. “If one aspect fails, then we all fail because we are all working toward a common goal.”

The new operation comes with several advantages. The annual operating cost is approximately $18 million, which is 77 percent less than Manas. The average time it takes to process personnel deploying into theater is 36 hours, which is 12 hours less; and 40 hours to redeploy to home stations, which is 32 hours less than Manas.

“Time on the ground between when a Soldier or Marine lands is significant to the overall picture,” Brown said. “This operation is expeditionary in nature meaning we could collapse this operation if needed. Time and efficiency are saved based on how we conduct operations here. (Kogalniceanu AB) is the next evolution in how we conduct passenger transit.”

Romania Insider
August 25, 2014

PM on Romania’s objective for upcoming NATO summit: A clear NATO military presence in the region

One of Romania’s main objectives for the upcoming NATO summit in Wales is to obtain the commitment for “a clear NATO military presence in Romania”, Prime Minister Victor Ponta said on Monday, August 25. He didn’t mention if this would mean more NATO troops stationed in Romania of a permanent NATO military base in the country.

“Romania’s objectives are clear and established by all the state’s institutions, and these are a clear military presence of NATO in Romania, and a very clear commitment for all the Eastern (European – e.n.) flank to ensure security and partnership in the region,” Ponta said.

“It is extremely important that Romania, which proved to be a trusted NATO partner to know that the efforts of the Alliance are clearly channeled towards ensuring security in this region and towards a clear support for new candidates for EU accession, for Ukraine, for Moldova, for Georgia and for commitments related to their security,” he added.

Romania will be represented at the NATO summit in Wales, on September 4-5, by President Traian Basescu, but also by defense minister Mircea Dusa and by foreign affairs minister Titus Corlatean.

Corlatean declared earlier this year that Romania hopes to have a permanent NATO military base together with a more substantial U.S. military presence in the country. The U.S. military presence will be strengthened after the Deveselu military base, which hosts the American antimissile system, will become functional, which is expected for 2015.

On 4 to 5 September 2014, Wales will host the largest gathering of international leaders ever to take place in Britain as the UK hosts the NATO summit. American President Obama, German Chancellor Merkel, and French President Hollande are expected to attend along with leaders and senior ministers from around 60 other countries.

The summit comes as NATO draws down from its longest ever mission in Afghanistan and against a backdrop of instability in Ukraine, which is expected to be the main discussion theme.

Ukrinform
August 25, 2014

ATO to go down in history as Patriotic War of 2014 – Poroshenko

KYIV: The events of recent months will go down in history as the Patriotic War of 2014.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said this in his speech on Independence Square in Kyiv on August 24 on the occasion of Ukraine’s Independence Day.

“The events of recent months have become a real war for us though it hasn’t been declared. Probably, it will go down in history as the Patriotic War of 2014. The war against foreign aggression and for Ukraine, for its will, dignity and glory, for the people. For Independence,” he said.

…

“I am confident that the battle for Ukraine, for independence will end up successfully for us due to the nationwide solidarity multiplied by courage and heroism of our warriors,” Poroshenko said.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

American writers on peace and against war

Sinclair Lewis: Selections on war

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Sinclair Lewis
From It Can’t Happen Here (1935)

The handsome dining room of the Hotel Wessex, with its gilded plaster shields and the mural depicting the Green Mountains, had been reserved for the Ladies’ Night Dinner of the Fort Beulah Rotary Club.

Here in Vermont the affair was not so picturesque as it might have been on the Western prairies. Oh, it had its points: there was a skit in which Medary Cole (grist mill & feed store) and Louis Rotenstern (custom tailoring – pressing & cleaning) announced that they were those historic Vermonters, Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, and with their jokes about imaginary plural wives they got in ever so many funny digs at the ladies present. But the occasion was essentially serious. All of America was serious now, after the seven years of depression since 1929. It was just long enough after the Great War of 1914-18 for the young people who had been born in 1917 to be ready to go to college…or to another war, almost any old war that might be handy.

The features of this night among the Rotarians were nothing funny, at least not obviously funny, for they were the patriotic addresses of Brigadier General Herbert Y. Edgeways, U.S.A. (ret.), who dealt angrily with the topic “Peace through Defense – Millions for Arms but Not One Cent for Tribute,” and of Mrs. Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch – she who was no more renowned for her gallant anti-suffrage campaigning way back in 1919 than she was for having, during the Great War, kept the American soldiers entirely out of French cafés by the clever trick of sending them ten thousand sets of dominoes.

Nor could any social-minded patriot sneeze at her recent somewhat unappreciated effort to maintain the purity of the American Home by barring from the motion-picture industry all persons, actors or directors or cameramen, who had: (a) ever been divorced; (b) been born in any foreign country – except Great Britain, since Mrs. Gimmitch thought very highly of Queen Mary, or (c) declined to take an oath to revere the Flag, the Constitution, the Bible, and all other peculiarly American institutions.

The Annual Ladies’ Dinner was a most respectable gathering – the flower of Fort Beulah. Most of the ladies and more than half of the gentlemen wore evening clothes, and it was rumored that before the feast the inner circle had had cocktails, privily served in Room 289 of the hotel. The tables, arranged on three sides of a hollow square, were bright with candles, cut-glass dishes of candy and slightly tough almonds, figurines of Mickey Mouse, brass Rotary wheels, and small silk American flags stuck in gilded hard-boiled eggs. On the wall was a banner lettered “Service Before Self,” and the menu–the celery, cream of tomato soup, broiled haddock, chicken croquettes, peas, and tutti-frutti ice-cream – was up to the highest standards of the Hotel Wessex.

They were all listening, agape. General Edgeways was completing his manly yet mystical rhapsody on nationalism:

“…for these U-nited States, a-lone among the great powers, have no desire for foreign conquest. Our highest ambition is to be darned well let alone! Our only gen-uine relationship to Europe is in our arduous task of having to try and educate the crass and ignorant masses that Europe has wished onto us up to something like a semblance of American culture and good manners. But, as I explained to you, we must be prepared to defend our shores against all the alien gangs of international racketeers that call themselves ‘governments,’ and that with such feverish envy are always eyeing our inexhaustible mines, our towering forests, our titanic and luxurious cities, our fair and far-flung fields.

“For the first time in all history, a great nation must go on arming itself more and more, not for conquest – not for jealousy – not for war – but for peace! Pray God it may never be necessary, but if foreign nations don’t sharply heed our warning, there will, as when the proverbial dragon’s teeth were sowed, spring up an armed and fearless warrior upon every square foot of these United States, so arduously cultivated and defended by our pioneer fathers, whose sword-girded images we must be…or we shall perish!”

The applause was cyclonic. “Professor” Emil Staubmeyer, the superintendent of schools, popped up to scream, “Three cheers for the General – hip, hip, hooray!”

All the audience made their faces to shine upon the General and Mr. Staubmeyer – all save a couple of crank pacifist women, and one Doremus Jessup, editor of the Fort Beulah Daily Informer, locally considered “a pretty smart fella but kind of a cynic,” who whispered to his friend the Reverend Mr. Falck, “Our pioneer fathers did rather of a skimpy job in arduously cultivating some of the square feet in Arizona!”

Azeri Press Agency
August 22, 2014

Baltics and Poland need more military infrastructure: Latvia

Baku: The Baltic states and Poland must invest in military infrastructure so they can host troops from other NATO nations for training or in case of crisis, Latvia’s defense minister said on Friday, APA reports quoting Reuters.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine have alarmed Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania – like Ukraine, former Soviet republics with Russian-speaking minorities.

NATO’s 28 leaders are expected to discuss plans to reassure Poland and the Baltics at a summit in Wales on Sept. 4-5.

Germany’s Angela Merkel, during a short visit to Latvia on Monday, pledged NATO would defend the Baltic states, although it would not send permanent combat troops.

“Any country, including the Baltic states, also Poland, have to strengthen their infrastructure … so they can host additional troops for training and crisis situations,” Latvia’s Defense Minister Raimonds Vejonis told Reuters.

In Latvia’s case that would mean investments in Adazi base for ground troops, Lielvarde air base and Liepaja naval base, he said, adding he hoped NATO would contribute to the spending.

Latvia and Lithuania spend respectively just 0.9 and 0.8 percent of GDP on defense but have pledged to meet the alliance’s target of 2.0 percent by 2020.

“There is no direct military threat at the moment, but we have to develop our armed forces, we have to create infrastructure, we have to be ready to host representatives of NATO countries if there suddenly is a military aggression,” the minister said.

…

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Italian writers on war and militarism

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Giovanni Verga:
From The House by the Medlar-Tree (1890)
Translated by Mary A. Craig

In the group…there were two soldiers of the marine corps, with sacks on their shoulders and their heads bound up, going home on leave…They were telling how there had been a great battle at sea, and how ships as big as Aci Trezza, full as they could hold of soldiers, had gone down just as they were…

“It seems to me that those fellows are all mad,” said Padron Cipolla, blowing his nose with great deliberation. “Would you go and get yourself killed just because the King said to you, ‘Go and be killed for my sake’?”

***

The day after the rumor began to spread that there had been a great battle at sea, over towards Trieste, between our ships and those of the enemy. Nobody knew how many there were, and and many people had been killed…The neighbors came with hands under their aprons to ask cousin Maruzza whether that were not where Luca was, and looked sadly at her as they did so. The poor woman began to stand at the door as they do when a misfortune happens, turning her head this way and that, or looking down the road towards the turn…

At last someone was charitable enough to tell him to go to the captain of the port, who would be certain to know all about it. There, after sending him from Pilate to Herod and back again, he began to turn over big books and run down the lists of the dead with his finger. When he came to one name, La Longa, who had scarcely heard what went on, so loudly did her ears ring, and was listening as white as the sheet of paper, slipped silently down on the floor as if she had been dead.

“It was more than forty days ago,” said the clerk, shutting up the list. “It was at Lissa. Had not you heard of it yet?”

They brought La Longa home in a cart, and she was ill for several days. Henceforward she was given to a great devotion to the Mother of Sorrows, who is on the altar of the little chapel; and it seemed to her as if the long corpse stretched on the mother’s knees, with blue ribs and bleeding sides, was her Luca’s own portrait, and in her own heart she felt the points of the Madonna’s seven sharp swords. Every evening the devotees, when they came to church for the benediction, and Don Cirino, when he went about shaking the keys before shutting up for the night, found her there in the same place, with her face bent down upon her knees, and they called her, too, the Mother of Sorrows.

Interfax-Ukraine
August 23, 2014

US supports right of all Ukrainian people to choose own path – greeting from Kerry

U.S. State Secretary John Kerry on behalf of U.S. President Barack Obama and the people of the United States congratulate the people of Ukraine as Ukraine celebrates the 23rd anniversary of its independence on August 24.

“During my most recent visit to Ukraine, I was inspired by the remarkable strength of the Ukrainian people. I walked down Instytutska Street and paid my respects to the heroes of the Euromaidan. I saw the barricades, the burned tires, and the bullet holes in the street lamps. But I also saw the flowers and the photographs of the people who gave their lives for Ukraine. I spoke to the men and women of Kyiv who told me of their commitment to a more prosperous, peaceful future for all Ukrainians,” reads a greeting posted on the Web site of the U.S. Department of State.

“Since your independence, and especially over the past tumultuous year, the people of the United States have stood proudly with the people of Ukraine as you seek a more peaceful, democratic, prosperous, and European future. Whether in Kyiv, Crimea, or Donetsk, the United States is firmly determined to support the right of all Ukrainian people to choose your own path,” reads the greeting.

The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine also greeted Ukraine. The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine wished Ukrainians a Happy 23rd Independence Day. The embassy presented the Ukrainian National Anthem in 17 of the languages spoken by staff at our Embassy in Kyiv posted in Youtube.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

American writers on peace and against war

Upton Sinclair: Selections on war

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Upton Sinclair

From Boston (1928)

“You learn little bit,” said Vanzetti, “I maka you onderstand heem Italian. No can make Engleesh, spoil beutifool sound. You hear heem – listen, Miz’ Cornella.” He began to recite, lingering over every syllable, sounding all the vowels broad and long, as the Italians do:

Per me si va nell città dolente;

Per me si va nell’ eterno dolore;

Per me si va tra la perduta gente.

Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore.

“He sadda man,” said Vanzetti; “never soocha sorrowful man live on eart’. He called it l’inferno – lika you say American, ‘hella,’ but not for curse-word, Miz’ Cornella, you know what the priesta teach, da place for punish badda men.”

“I understand.”

But you no believa da priest, it is all same hella here, what badda men maka for poor man, killa da people in war. You reada Dante, you no t-ink inferno, you t’ink Italia, you t-ink America, here, now. So he say” – and the speaker repeated the verses, and painfully worked out their English equivalent:

By me to go into da sadda city;

By me you go into da endless sorrow;

By me you go among da losta people.

Joostice it move-èd him, my great maker.

It is a fact that much great poetry has been written in the dialects of the poor and humble; it is a fact that Dante’s own dialect was that, until he made it a world-language. But Cornelia did not know this, and did not realize that the Italian ditch-digger was making good poetry of his own. She only knew that she was managing to understand what his teacher meant to him: “Perduta gente, Miz’ Cornella – it is not people what deny the priest and go hella, it is people what is poor and no got friend, go for be shot, and kill-èd in bigga war. Dat is perduta gente, losta people; for soocha people it maka me tears in da heart.”

U.S. Department of Defense
August 22, 2014

DoD: Russian Convoy Violates Ukrainian Sovereignty
By Jim Garamone

FORT MEADE, Md.– Defense Department officials are concerned about a Russian convoy crossing into Ukraine, and urge Russian officials to turn the convoy around.

“We strongly condemn this action and any actions that Russian forces take that increase tensions in the region,” Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters today.

“Russia should not send vehicles, persons or cargo of any kind into Ukraine, whether under the guise of humanitarian convoys or any other pretext, without Kyiv’s express permission,” the admiral said.

Kirby called the convoy a violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Russia must recall its vehicles and personnel, he said.

“Failure to do so will result in additional costs and isolation,” the admiral said.

U.S. officials are speaking with officials of the International Red Cross and partner nations on the next steps, Kirby said.

The convoy moving into Ukraine follows a conversation that Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu had with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Kirby said. Shoygu assured Hagel “that there would be no military intervention using the pretext of humanitarian relief and, in fact, assured us that there would be no military members as a part of this humanitarian convoy,” the admiral said.

Russia should not be using the guise of a humanitarian convoy to cross the border into Ukraine in a non-authorized way, Kirby said.

Xinhua News Agency
August 22, 2014

Denmark to join Nato’s missile defense system

COPENHAGEN: Denmark has decided to join NATO’s missile defence system, local media reported Friday.

Denmark will contribute at least one frigate to NATO’s missile defense shield, the country’s Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard said after a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday afternoon.

“We will offer that one and more of our frigates can be outfitted with a radar that can be part of the missile defence. There was wide support for that (in the Foreign Affairs Committee),” Lidegaard was cited as saying by Denmark’s newspaper Berlingske Tidende.

Denmark’s Defense Minister Nikolai Wammen emphasized that the decision to join the missile defence system is not an action aimed at Russia.

…

According to Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, it will cost some 400-500 million Danish kroner (71-89 million U.S. dollars) to equip Danish frigates with advanced radar equipment.

At the meeting, the Foreign Affairs Committee also decided that Denmark will send weapons and a contingent of troops to Iraq to fight the extremist Islamic State.

Ukrinform
August 22, 2014

SBU: Entry of Russian ‘convoy’ a direct incursion into Ukraine

KYIV: Ukraine sees the entry of a Russian “humanitarian convoy” into its territory as a direct incursion.

Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valentyn Nalyvaichenko told this to reporters on Friday, a Ukrinform correspondent reported.

“We call this a direct invasion for the first time under the cynical cover of the Red Cross,” he said.
He said that the trucks and their drivers had nothing to do with civilians. Nalyvaichenko said that the drivers of Russian trucks include people who will take part in torturing hostages captured by terrorists. And some of these drivers are persons from convoy and other units of Russia who will later hide their crimes.

He also said that the convoy’s drivers received Russian passports for traveling abroad only on August 9-10.
In addition, according to Nalyvaichenko, the products of Russian trucks will be passed to terrorists, while the trucks themselves will be used to carry firearms.

…

“Ukraine will inform the Red Cross in every way possible so that Ukraine could not be involved in a provocation, so that we do not use restrictions or force used against the so-called assistance vehicles,” he said.

He noted that the use of military force against the Russian convoy was not currently being planned.

National Radio Company of Ukraine
August 21, 2014

Foreign Minister: Germany could play a key role in ‘Marshall Plan’ for Ukraine

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has again asked Western countries to provide more support to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. He said that Ukraine needs a broader assistance plan, a kind of “Marshall Plan,” a key role in which could be played by Germany.

He said this in an interview with Express, Deutsche Welle reported on Thursday. “The United States played a key role in the Marshall Plan after World War II, and now this historical mission could be led by Germany,” Klimkin said.

He called on Western countries to actively support Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. “I think it would be logical to provide Ukraine with technical and military aid to fight terrorism, as in the case of Iraq,” Klimkin said.

He stressed that such assistance was in the interests of the European Union itself. As reported, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will arrive on a one-day working visit to Kyiv on August 23 at the invitation of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. This visit will be the first since the beginning of the political crisis in Ukraine in late 2013.

Ministry of Defense of Georgia
August 20, 2014

Defence Minister on Board of the USS Vella Gulf

Minister of Defence of Georgia Irakli Alasania was on board of the USS Vella Gulf, cruiser from the United States’ Navy 6th Fleet. The crew showed the Defence Minister around the ship.

Irakli Alasania outlined the significance of the visit of the USS Vella Gulf: “It is very important not only for Georgia but for the whole region that such ship with such armament and defence capabilities entered the Black Sea. This is the third port call and this is one more declaration that United States of America will be supporter of our region and Georgia’s security. We are developing our cooperation in bilateral format and at the upcoming NATO Summit we expect to have more capabilities to defend our country. This is another step towards our regional security and we are very grateful to the the United States for this. I am sure we will see more joint exercises and visits of ships of NATO and the United States.”

The USS Vella Gulf (CG 72), a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser from the United States’ Navy 6th Fleet, made a port visit in Batumi on August 18 and will stay in the territorial waters of Georgia till August 20. The Vella Gulf’s visit reaffirms the United States’ commitment to strengthening ties with NATO allies and partners like Georgia…

Vella Gulf , homeported in Norfolk Virginia, is deployed in a multi-mission role in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations to contribute to regional maritime security, conduct bilateral and multilateral training missions, and to support NATO operations and deployments throughout the region.

…

Ministry of Defence of Georgia
August 20, 2014

Trilateral Meeting in Nakhchivan

The trilateral meeting among the Georgian, Azerbaijanian and Turkish Defence Ministers was held in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan today. Irakli Alasania, Zakir Hasanov and İsmet Yılmaz discussed the prospects of trilateral cooperation in defence sphere and regional security issues. The sides focused on joint efforts to protect strategic energy-transport infrastructure of the region. Defence Ministers outlined that strengthened cooperation among Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey will be aimed at protecting national security of the countries.

“It is a pleasure to be here in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan and to start very important, crucially important cooperation in trilateral format with the strategic partners of Georgia which are Azerbaijan and Turkey. We had very fruitful discussions on security and defence issues related to the critical infrastructure that is shared by these three countries and which are very integral to the economic development and well-being of our nations. Georgia is very fortunate to have such great neighbors and strategic allies like Azerbaijan and Turkey. And these challenging times from the security standpoint in the wider region we need to cooperate more closely and we need to be very tightly in touch with each other to defend the critical infrastructure that is very integral to our development…And at the same time for everybody to see that these relations are to promote each other’s security, economic development in light of all national interests. We fully support the territorial integrity of each other, sovereignty and we intend to do everything possible to peacefully resolve the conflicts that are in this region,” declared Defence Minister at the press conference after the meeting.

In the framework of the official visit to Azerbaijan Defence Minister met with his Azerbaijanian colleague General-Colonel Zakir Hasanov and the Chairman of Nakhchivan Supreme Assembly Vasif Talibov.

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Albert Memmi
From Pillar of Salt (1953)
Translated by Edouard Roditi

Outside, the horror had taken on the quiet and sinister disguise of a machine. Regular and even flights of bombers came over us in waves, dropped their bombs on the hills and flew off again. During all this relay race, the machine guns kept quiet and there were no accessory noises. Death, at this stage, seemed to neglect all the smaller means that were at its disposal…

We were once more alone with the war, which was steadily catching up with our torn feet. Now that the bombers had made sure of the silence of their former objectives, they were aiming closer to us on the left. Clouds of thick gray smoke rose slowly and hung in the air, and the whims of the wind brought us the acrid smell of bomb explosions.

The fighter planes! We forced our swollen feet to run and threw ourselves into the ditches. Intelligently and diabolically, the planes passed over us, changed their minds, came back, then swooped and fired wherever they saw any sign of life. A German courier was racing past on his motorcycle, both he and his machine wrapped in striped oilskin camouflage like a fabulous caparisoned beast, when suddenly a Spitfire dived and flew low, riddling him with bullets till it rose again and left behind a human torch. I closed my eyes. But there were neither screams nor spectacular convulsions. The machine silently went on, left the road, cut straight across a field, then lay down on its side, still burning. So the war had caught up with us; any encounter now was dangerous.

***

Evening fell before I expected it. Night imposed silence on the cannon and machine guns and engines all along the hills and within the arc of the front. But this sudden peace seemed to me so false and so heavy that I regretted the daylight…We entered a field of ripe wheat which nobody dared pick. We arranged to take turns at standing watch and hid ourselves in the wheat. I was still chewing a thistle stem which was sour in my mouth when the war, for a moment silenced by the night, started again, more terrible and cynical than ever. A magnificent fireworks began: magnesium flares blindingly white, yellow, and then red, like dying stars; straight bright red streaks of machine-gun fire; elegant and clear lines of bullets traced like fugitive neon lights; and scarlet, sinister rugged patches from anti-aircraft artillery. Then the noise: after the solemn, promising silence of the flares came the mad disorderly reaction of the inhabitants of the earth to the regular, obstinate sounds of the invisible motors in the sky.

The airplanes replied to the nervous coughing of the machine guns with great battering blows that shook the earth. It was a celebration in honor of death. On the other side of the road a tribe of Bedouins rose from the middle of a field like a flight of partridges whose nest had been wrecked by a storm. These fugitives were perfectly silhouetted against the intermittent and richly colored flashes of light, until they disappeared, pursued by their fate, chanting monotonous prayers…

U.S. Army Europe
August 21, 2014

Immediate Response 2014 Kicks Off

WHAT IS IMMEDIATE RESPONSE?

Immediate Response 2014 is a trilateral command post and tactical field training exercise that will involve more than 900 personnel primarily from the U.S., Slovenian and Croatian armed forces, with contingents from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and the United Kingdom.

The exercise is from Aug. 17-30, 2014. IR 14 is a part of U.S. EUCOM’s joint training and exercise program designed to enhance joint and combined interoperability with allied and partner nations.

IR 14 supports interoperability between the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, Slovenian and Croatian Armed Forces and partnered nations and will help prepare participants to operate successfully in a joint, multinational, interagency, integrated environment.

The primary objective is to prepare participating nations for increased contributions to ongoing and future NATO operations.

Interfax-Ukraine
August 21, 2014

Ukrainian Interior Ministry, National Guard lose 16 servicemen in Ilovaisk battle

Anton Heraschenko, an advisor of the Ukrainian interior minister, has reported the death of 16 servicemen of the Interior Ministry and the National Guard in the battle of Ilovaisk in Donetsk region.

“So, 16 out of 64 soldiers or 25% of all soldiers of special battalions of the Interior Ministry and the National Guard who had died in the entire ATO period were killed near Ilovaisk. This is a proof of how fierce that fighting is,” Heraschenko wrote on Facebook on Thursday.

He said the Ukrainian battalions had had big losses: Donbas had lost eight men killed and twelve wounded, Azov had two killed and seven wounded or five dead and eleven wounded since the beginning of the fight for Ilovaisk, Shakhtarsk had four killed and 16 wounded, including two severely, and Dnipro had two killed and seven wounded.

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Ukrinform
August 21, 2014

Five Ukrainian servicemen killed, 21 wounded in east Ukraine fighting over past 24 hours

KYIV: Five Ukrainian servicemen have been killed and 21 injured in the Donbas in the past 24 hours.

Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) information and analytical center spokesman Andriy Lysenko said this at a briefing on Thursday.

“Five Ukrainian military have been killed and 21 have been wounded over the past 24 hours,” he said.

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Ukrinform
August 21, 2014

Militants shot down Ukrainian Su-24M aircraft, pilots eject

KYIV: Terrorists shot down a Ukrainian Su-24M military aircraft in Luhansk region on Wednesday.

Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) information and analytical center spokesman Andriy Lysenko said this at a briefing on Thursday.

“Near the village of Novosvitlivka in Luhansk region terrorists shot down a Su-24M plane of the Ukrainian Air Force that was returning after the fulfillment of a task. Both pilots ejected,” Lysenko said.

Lysenko said earlier that militants shot down a Su-25 fighter aircraft in Luhansk region on August 20 and that the fate of the pilots was unknown.

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Ukrinform
August 21, 2014

Terrorists shot down Ukrainian Su-25 fighter in Luhansk region – Lysenko

KYIV: A Su-25 fighter aircraft involved in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) was shot down in Luhansk region on Wednesday, National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) information and analytical center spokesman Andriy Lysenko has said, according to ZN.ua.

“A Su-25 aircraft was really hit today during a combat mission. It crashed. The fate of the pilot is still unknown, but there is hope that everything will be fine with him,” he told the 112 Ukraina television channel on Wednesday.

Earlier media reports said that militants from the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic terrorist group had supposedly shot down an aircraft and two helicopters of the ATO forces near Luhansk.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Air Command
August 21, 2014

NATO FIGHTERS OVER BULGARIA LATEST EXAMPLE OF ALLIANCE RESOLVE IN EASTERN EUROPE

Ramstein, GERMANY: Twelve United States Air Force F-15C fighter aircraft were deployed to Graf Ignatievo Air Base, Bulgaria on Monday, 18 August. They will conduct flying operations and training with MiG-29 fighters from the Bulgarian Air Force until the end of the month. The deployment is part of NATO’s ongoing efforts to ensure its collective defence and demonstrate Allied solidarity and readiness.

The U.S. aircraft, which were deployed from Royal Air Force Base Lakenheath, United Kingdom, together with more than 180 airmen, will remain in Bulgaria until 1 September. During this period the F-15Cs will operate under NATO authority and their activities will be controlled by NATO’s southern Combined Air Operations Centre in Torrejon, Spain.

According to General Frank Gorenc, Commander of NATO’s Allied Air Command at Ramstein Air Base, the deployment highlights the essence of NATO collective defence. “This is what NATO and our Alliance is all about,” he said. “It is pretty simple – we connect our NATO forces by training together. Over the next two weeks we are connecting 12 deployed F15Cs, Bulgarian Forces, and Allied command and control assets.”

F-15 Eagle fighter jets assigned to the 48th Fighter Wing taxi the runway 15 Aug. 2014, before take-off at Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, in preparation for a bilateral training event at Graf Ignatievo Air Base, Bulgaria. The F-15 fighter pilots’ flying training deployment to Bulgaria focuses on maintaining joint readiness while building interoperability capabilities. – Photo courtesy of U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Erin O’Shea

“It took NATO only three weeks from idea to action,” General Gorenc added. “These deployments are important to further develop Allied interoperability and responsiveness. And last but not least, they provide huge training benefits for both our aircrew and command and control team.”

This isn’t the first time this U.S. unit has deployed in support of NATO’s assurance measures. From January to April this year, a total of ten F-15Cs from Lakenheath, United Kingdom, were deployed to Siauliai, Lithuania, under the control of NATO’s northern CAOC at Uedem, Germany, to execute NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission.

NATO has implemented a range of military measures including air, land, and maritime activities that reinforce collective defence and demonstrate the strength of Allied solidarity. A Readiness Action Plan is currently being developed which will consist of a range of measures to respond to the changed security environment. These measures will include increasing the readiness of the NATO Response Force, pre-positioning equipment and supplies, enhancing NATO’s intelligence and awareness, and focusing our exercises on specific defence challenges. These measures will be a main point of discussion at the NATO Summit in Cardiff, Wales in early September.

Story by HQ AIRCOM Public Affairs Office