A former Army Special Operations officer says the Obama administration’s inability to officially say the U.S. has a no-first-use nuclear policy is a sign that military top brass want to antagonize Russia and China.
Asked about whether he thought it was a good idea for U.S. leaders to unequivocally pledge that the nation would only use nuclear weapons in a defensive capacity, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters:
“It has been the policy of the United States for a long time to extend the – its nuclear umbrella to friends and allies and — thereby to contribute to the deterrence of conflict and the deterrence of war and many of our friends and allies have benefited from that over time. And our future plans will retain for the United States the capability to meet those alliance commitments in the future.”
Confused reporters asked the official to clarify whether he’d just said ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Carter’s response remained unclear.
“It has been our policy for a long time and it’s part of our plans going forward,” he said.
Since the U.S.’s use of nuclear bombs to end WWII, presidential administrations have made clear that nuclear technology would only be used again as a matter of last resort.
But earlier this year, Obama administration officials began discussing whether the administration should ratify the longstanding unwritten policy with an official pledge.
Senior military officials, including Carter, rejected the proposal, saying any such move would signal weakness to nuclear powers like Russia and China. Despite his desire to make decreasing international reliance on nuclear weapons part of his legacy, Obama has now abandoned the proposal.
Scott Bennett, a former Army psychological warfare officer who is now a whistleblower, said in an interview with the Iranian-backed PressTV that all of this is a sign elected officials in the U.S. may be losing control of the military.
“Essentially what I see [military leaders] doing is positioning the United States Pentagon – the Department of Defense – in a military gun road within the United States that is headed up by psychopaths and uniforms that are really blood-drunk with war for the past 15 years, setting them up for a long-term military conflict with Russia, Iran and China,” he said.
Bennett called for the White House to regain control of what he sees as a military apparatus engaging in provocation of other nations for its own benefit.
“The military in the United States is now off the chain, it’s not obeying President Obama, it is not obeying the United States Congress, instead you have a small cabal within the Pentagon and specifically the US Central Command commanding the Middle East theater, positioning itself for a long-term war,” he said.
Bennet added that Americans should be particularly alarmed of the possibility of conflict with Russia “given the positioning of the batteries of missile silos now in Romania and Poland” the U.S. military is currently beefing up.
