Dave Lindorff in Counterpunch:
Nobody is talking about the blame that must be shouldered by the German government for the crisis and humanitarian disaster in Ukraine.
Sure Russia is guilty of a huge war crime in invading Ukraine. Surely too, the US must be blamed for creating the situation which led Russia and its autocratic leader Vladimir Putin to decide it had to invade to prevent Ukraine from being pulled into the US orbit with the goal that it would ultimately become a base for US offensive weapons — even nuclear weapons — on Russia’s border — something the US would never allow to happen anywhere in its self-proclaimed “backyard” of Latin America and the Caribbean.
But Germany, the largest country in NATO after the US, is almost as guilty for this current war in Europe as is the United States. Germany was only reunified without any difficulty after 45 years of being split in two following World War II, because of a deal struck by the US with Russia in 1990 at which US Secretary of State James Baker stated that NATO would not be expanded “one inch ” eastward past the reunified German border. Now it is widely known that despite having a powerful economy, Germany remains something of a lackey of the US in its foreign policy.
More here.