Oh Goody

Submitted by snoopydawg on Thu, 04/04/2019 - 1:44am

Amid rising tensions, NATO chief pitches confrontation with Russia to US Congress

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg delivered the first-ever address by a leader of the US-led imperialist alliance to a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday, promoting a military buildup against Russia under conditions in which ever greater fissures are threatening to tear NATO itself apart.

Stoltenberg, whose pedestrian speech was interrupted by 18 standing ovations from the assembled US Senators and Representatives, claimed that he was not pushing a new Cold War, but nonetheless made it clear that the central axis of the NATO alliance remained preparation for a military confrontation with Moscow.

“For the first time, we have combat-ready troops deployed in the east of our alliance,” he said. “We have increased the readiness of our forces, tripled the size of the NATO Response Force, modernized our command structure, bolstered our cyber defenses, and we have stepped up support for our close partners, Georgia and Ukraine, sovereign nations with the sovereign right to choose their own path.”

This boasting over the deployment of armed battalions on Russia’s very borders came as a summit of NATO foreign ministers being held in Washington approved plans for the dispatch of NATO warships to the Kerch Strait. This passageway between the Black and Azov Seas was the scene last November of a provocation by Ukraine that ended in an armed confrontation in which Russia seized three Ukrainian ships and some two dozen sailors.

“We are going to make sure that we have the capability to deter a very aggressive Russia,” US ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison told reporters on Tuesday on the sidelines of the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting. She said that the upcoming NATO intervention was designed “to assure that there is a safe passage for Ukrainian vessels through the Kerch Strait.”

....
One Russian television commentator described Stoltenberg’s speech as a “familiar bundle of threats and phobias” based upon the concern that Russia “had placed its borders too close to NATO.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a photo-op with Stoltenberg in which she gushed that the NATO chief’s appearance on Capitol Hill was a “jubilant occasion” and thanked him for his “leadership in making the world a more peaceful place.”
....
While Stoltenberg tried to portray the increasingly acrimonious divisions within NATO as “a sign of strength” and “democracy,” US Vice President Mike Pence, speaking at a NATO anniversary event in Washington, delivered what amounted to ultimatums to both Turkey and Germany to submit to Washington’s diktats, or else.

“Turkey must choose,” Pence said. “Does it want to remain a critical partner in the most successful military alliance in history, or does it want to risk the security of that partnership by making such reckless decisions that undermine our alliance?”

Pence also turned his fire against Berlin, condemning the German government for refusing “to make the necessary investment of 2 percent of its GDP to our common defense.”

While the German government is rearming on a scale unseen since the downfall of Hitler’s Third Reich—increasing military spending by 40 percent since 2014—Pence cast Berlin as shirking its responsibilities.

More pointedly, he denounced the German government for moving ahead with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, bringing Russian natural gas to Germany through the Baltic Sea, insisting that Germany ran the risk of becoming a “captive of Russia.” Washington has pressed for Germany to accept liquefied natural gas, delivered by US companies, as an alternative to Russian gas.

So there it is. Congress is telling us that it's fully committed to blowing the planet to hell and beyond for no other reason than it wants to continue being the biggest bully on the playground. This means that they will have to increase the military budget and then to pay for it they will gut what's left of our social programs. The first people to make the sacrifices will be the poor, elderly and disabled. If they can't fight in the upcoming wars what use are they? The middle class will be next. It's already decreasing because the rich need more money.

The interesting thing to watch will be Pence's ultimatum to Turkey. Buy our less dependable and more expensive missile defense system or we will kick you out of NATO. Hopefully Turkey responds by saying fine. Take your planes and other military equipment with you when you leave and don't forget to turn the lights off.

In case anyone is interested in protesting against this action then find your nearest protest site tomorrow for it. Oh wait. This protest is to get Barr to release the Mueller report to congress. My bad...

Tags:

NATO Needs to be Dismantled. STAT!

Vote

Comments

Submitted by janis b on Thu, 04/04/2019 - 2:42am

Oh Goody, Oy Gawd.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a photo-op with Stoltenberg in which she gushed that the NATO chief’s appearance on Capitol Hill was a “jubilant occasion” and thanked him for his “leadership in making the world a more peaceful place.”

Gushing about making the world a more peaceful place while building military might is more than I can grasp. The absurdity is beyond comprehension.

Submitted by ggersh on Thu, 04/04/2019 - 11:16am

GBA, the only exceptional country in the world

@janis b where making war is peaceful, Pelosi is certifiably

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a photo-op with Stoltenberg in which she gushed that the NATO chief’s appearance on Capitol Hill was a “jubilant occasion” and thanked him for his “leadership in making the world a more peaceful place.”

—

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Submitted by travelerxxx on Thu, 04/04/2019 - 3:24am

Dementia in DC

I would imagine whoever is in charge of Russia's ballistic missile and submarine forces is probably making sure everything is fueled up and ready-to-go about now. While I certainly hope not, could you blame them?

These obscene war mongers in Washington have gone totally insane. I don't know what else it could be. How else could they not recognize the unmitigated worldwide disaster they are pushing humanity toward? Insanity is the only thing that makes any sense to me.

Submitted by Raggedy Ann on Thu, 04/04/2019 - 5:40am

The slow death march.

It's like we're in a movie. Not watching a movie. Congress really does not care about the American people or they would not be standing in ovation for nuclear death. What will be left for them to spend their millions on? Doesn't seem to matter. We, the deplorables, will be eliminated. They just can't see beyond that.

Without revolution, we remain deplorable.

—

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Submitted by Lookout on Thu, 04/04/2019 - 8:16am

Now with new member states!

Like Columbia and Brazil who plan to move to the N. Atlantic upon membership.

NATO = War mongers international (WMI)

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by detroitmechworks on Thu, 04/04/2019 - 8:37am

And the cycle of empire is now complete...

We have Just one Colony.
Now we have to defend that colony.
And the other colonies.
Now you are all Empire citizens.
Invade Russia and/or Afghanistan...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVWfqOSdzs4]

—

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Submitted by The Wizard on Thu, 04/04/2019 - 10:50am

We are on the road to hell, and cheering

The situation keeps getting worse, by choice. There are two possible outcomes, global thermonuclear war or the US collapses. I took the total US expenses on war, divided it by the population and then multiplied it by the population of my city. That number was equal to the total city budget. Hmm, that's the real cost of this insanity. We give up a real livable infrastructure and real human services, such as universal health care and education, in order to persue this insanity of global dominance.
It won't work and will backfire because the countries alienated by it represent the majority of people, production of goods, resources and... yes technology today. The claimed aggressiveness from China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, is pure projection. The US is by far the most dangerous and aggressive nation in the world. For those of us who have traveled to China, Russia and other recently developed countries, we see a huge difference to the US state of development. Train stations in China are more modern than airports in the US. Add to that the right to health care and education in China and Russia and you get a picture that the US is busy obscuring a very mediocre country with inflating the only dominant sector, the military. This, by the way, will never work against modern defenses. The US doesn't dare directly attack Russia or China. The pentagon understands this well, but our brain dead politicians don't have a clue.

—

Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

Submitted by wendy davis on Thu, 04/04/2019 - 12:23pm

thanks, snoopy;

although the paens to nato are hardly unexpected, imo. as far as this:

“We are going to make sure that we have the capability to deter a very aggressive Russia,” US ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison told reporters on Tuesday on the sidelines of the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting. She said that the upcoming NATO intervention was designed “to assure that there is a safe passage for Ukrainian vessels through the Kerch Strait.”

...i'd thought readers here would be interested in my (lengthy, admittedly) diary on the Ukrainan elections, but...no so much. but mny of the 39 candidates were running campaigns against 'revanchist russia, reclaim rimea and the donbass, no russian language in schools, and all that jazz.

but i had featured the no to nato, hands off Vz, etc. rallies in DeeCee on March 30.

Protest the U.S./NATO attack on Venezuela and the rest of the world. Saturday, March 30 in Washington. https://t.co/HyZskxVqMA #HandsOffVenezuela #No2NATO #NotoNATO #USOutofAfrica @Blacks4Peace @UNAC1 pic.twitter.com/1h6DYZx9ej

— Margaret Kimberley (@freedomrideblog) March 25, 2019

this is

#notonato on twitter. lots of good tweets and reminders.

anyway, john wight at RT in his april 4: ‘70 years of NATO charts 70 years of brute force and hard power’ brings in a lot of historical narrative and quotes i hadn't known. he first brings some of the heady peace and cooperation parts of the UN charter preamble, then these bits and bobs:

"What lies at the root and what is the common denominator responsible for mankind’s abject failure to achieve the vision set out in the UN Charter? Upon due consideration, we are left in no doubt that, fundamentally, the series of conflicts that have come to define our existence are a consequence of the drive by one ideological bloc to dominate and impose a particular political, economic and value system onto a world defined by its diversity of languages, cultures, histories and traditions.

The result is the normalization of war and the apotheosis of hard power, rather than war and hard power being regarded as grotesque perversions in a world cured of the moral sickness of might is right."

[snip]

"Seventy years ago, NATO, a military alliance whose entire existence and ethos is predicated on might is right, emerged from the womb of the Cold War objectives devised by a Truman administration of fanatical hawks, consumed with the goal of full-spectrum dominance at the close of WWII.

In his 1997 essay, ‘The Last Empire,’ Gore Vidal savages the official history proffered by Western ideologues when it comes to the sudden shift that took place from Moscow being viewed as an indispensable ally in the war against Nazi Germany in the eyes of the Roosevelt administration, to implacable foe when Truman entered the White House upon Roosevelt’s death in April 1945.

Gore Vidal: “The National Security State, the NATO alliance, the forty-year Cold War were all created without the consent, much less advice, of the American people… The impetus behind NATO was the United States… We were now hell bent on the permanent division of Germany between our western zone (plus the British and French zones) and the Soviet zone to the east. Serenely, we broke every agreement that we had made with our former ally, now horrendous Communist enemy.”

"Flush with triumphalism over the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, NATO was loosed upon the world not in name of democracy but in the cause of imperialism. Neocon scribe Thomas Friedman, more than any of his ilk, has written openly of the driving ethos of Western foreign policy after the Soviet Union’s demise: “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist – McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.” [snip]

"Michael Parenti, in his definitive work on the destruction of Yugoslavia, ‘To Kill A Nation,’ reminds us that after the fall of communism in eastern Europe, “the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) remained the only nation in that region that would not voluntarily discard what remained of its socialism and install an unalloyed free market system. It also proudly had no interest in joining NATO.” Later, Parenti also reveals: “The ultimate goal has been the complete privatization and Third Worldization of Yugoslavia, Eastern Europe… It is to replace the social wage with a neoliberal global free market, a process that would deliver still greater wealth and power into the hands of those at the top.”

wight then steers readers to neil clark's 'In 1999, it was Yugoslavia in the crosshairs of the imperialists, now it’s Venezuela', april 1, which opens:

"To mark the 20th anniversary of the start of NATO’s illegal 78-day bombardment of Yugoslavia, over 200 distinguished guests from all over the world gathered for a conference of the Belgrade Forum of the World of Equals.

The gathering titled “Never to Forget: Peace and Progress instead of Wars and Poverty” promoted genuine internationalism. Participants came from Israel AND Palestine. From Iran and Japan. From Britain, Germany, Italy, France and other NATO countries which had taken part in the bombing. From Venezuela, Cuba, Bulgaria, Greece, Brazil, Croatia, Canada and South Africa. India and Nepal, Austria and Switzerland, Ireland, Portugal, Turkey and Lebanon. From the US AND Russia. This was the real ‘international community’ on display."

'https://www.rt.com/op-ed/455529-nato-anniversary-force-war/

Submitted by MrWebster on Thu, 04/04/2019 - 1:41pm

Well if NATO wants to destroy world civilization for Nazis

Jens Stoltenberg is such a war mongering idiot. The build up of NATO on Russian borders is an repeat of the Nazi invasion of Russia. Western Europeans may have forgotten, but not the Russians.