© Reuters/Gleb Garanich
, US lawmakers approved $200 million for providing "lethal weapons of a defensive nature" to the Ukrainian government as part of the $600 billion Pentagon budget proposal for the fiscal year 2016.
The House Armed Services Committee passed its proposal for the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with a bipartisan vote of 60 to 2, in what
Defense News described as a
"marathon
" session that ended around 4:30am on Thursday.
Section 1532 of the 498-page
document calls for the US to provide assistance, "including training, equipment, lethal weapons of a defensive nature, logistics support, supplies and services, and sustainment to the military and national security forces of Ukraine" through the end of September 2016.
Comment: Here we go again with the semantics of defensive lethal weapons. NATO Commander Breedlove
supports the idea of offensive weapons:
"I support the consideration of using offensive weapons to change the decision calculus on the ground [in eastern Ukraine] and to facilitate bringing our opponent to the table for a solution, a final solution," Breedlove told the US Senate Armed Services Committee.
But then later retracts that statement saying he
misspoke and actually meant defensive lethal weapons:
"We're talking about what I said earlier - lethal defensive weapon. I used these words and don't even understand what I said. It's not a big correction in politics, it's just a military pilot after 2 and a half hours testifying in the Senate, " said Breedlove.
Is that clear now?
Comment: A rare moment of truth from the Washington Post. Of course, we have to be suspicious of this editorial line from a truly 'white establishment' paper like the Post. In recent days, the Post has carried other very candidly anti-system articles. For example, in this article, when referring to the video of African-America mother Toya Graham beating her would-be protestor son, the Post journalist states: Do the owners of the Washington Post have an interest now in exposing the truth about racist America in order to encourage more widespread chaos and, possibly, one of those nice 'color revolutions' in which the US State Deptartment and CIA are so well-schooled?