Nonetheless, the Pentagon's role in this crisis needs to be emphasized, over and over again, just as the Pentagon's role in ginning up the Cuban Missile Crisis also needs to be emphasized, over and over again.

Yes, what I am emphasizing is the Pentagon's role in ginning up both of these crises that have gotten us so close to nuclear war with Russia. 

At the end of the Cold War racket, there was absolutely no reason for NATO to remain in existence. Its purported mission of protecting Europe from a Soviet (i.e., Russian) attack had been fulfilled. The Cold War was supposedly over. 

The only problem was that it wasn't over for the Pentagon and the CIA. If they had had their druthers, their Cold War racket would have gone on forever. After all, what better justification for their ever-increasing budgets and power within the federal governmental structure?

That's why they kept NATO in existence. While they were engaging in their interventionist antics in the Middle East, which led to their war-on-terrorism racket, they were, at the same time, using NATO to provoke Russia, with the aim of reigniting their old Cold War racket. Instead of dismantling their old Cold War dinosaur, they used used it to absorb former members of the Warsaw Pact, which enabled the Pentagon and the CIA to move their nuclear missiles and military forces inexorably closer to Russia's border, over Russia's vehement objections.