Don A. Smith / Progressive Memes

“America and NATO aren’t innocent bystanders.”
— Thomas Friedman, New York Times journalist

 

“I think [NATO expansion] is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.”
— George Kennan, American diplomat and historian

 

“Many have pointed to the expansion of NATO in the mid-1990s as a critical provocation …. [T]he first step in finding a solution [to the war in Ukraine] is acknowledging the problem and recognizing that our actions have contributed to that hostility.”
— William J. Perry, former US Secretary of Defense

 

“Before the war, far-right Ukrainian nationalist groups like the Azov Brigade were soundly condemned by the US Congress. Kiev’s determined campaign against the Russian language is analogous to the Canadian government trying to ban French in Quebec. Ukrainian shells have killed hundreds of civilians in the Donbas.”
— Ambassador Michael Gfoeller and diplomat David H. Rundell

 

“In 2014, the United States backed an uprising … against the legitimately elected Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych, which was pro-Russian.”
— Christopher Caldwell, journalist with the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post

 

“In denying that Russia has a ‘right’ to oppose extension of a hostile military alliance to its national borders, the United States ignores its own history of enforcing a sphere of influence.”
— Jack Matlock, former US Ambassador to the USSR

 

“One can readily imagine how Americans would react if Russia… admitted countries from Central American and the Caribbean to a security alliance that it led — and then sought to add Canada as an official or de facto military ally.”
— Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute.

 

“Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching.”
— Robert Gates, former US Secretary of Defense

 

Documentation about the above quotes can be found at this link: How the U.S. provoked Russia in Ukraine: A Compendium. There is a debate about eyewitness reports affirming William Casey’s quote but that hasn’t stopped Amazon from selling a bumpersticker with the quote for $8.99 (https://www.amazon.com/Disinformation-Complete-Everything-American-Believes/dp/B087QPYL69).