The problem with alliances is that they ultimately either become victims of their own success, or cannot figure out what to do with themselves once the original rationale disappears. The original Cold War-era NATO was a relatively cohesive entity led by one of the two superpowers, with most of its members being the industrialized democracies of Western Europe, with West Germany being its eastern-most European member, and alliance planning revolving around USSR. But even then there were cracks in the alliance. Italy, for example, had nearly no role to play as it did not border any Warsaw Pact country and did not practice deploying its forces to West Germany to practice its defense against the anticipated Warsaw Pact invasion. And while Greece and Turkey were ostensibly part of that alliance as well, in practice they spent more time clashing with one another than planning for joint action against USSR.
The end of the Cold War made the problem of alliance cohesion far worse, for two reasons. One, it quickly added as many members as possible thus greatly expanding its geographical extent, and two, it lost that single unifying factor in the form of USSR. Today’s NATO is a patchwork of mini-alliances revolving around the United States which is determined to replace the alliance aspect of NATO which assumes that all members have interests that are to be taken into consideration, by patron-client relationships.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the goal of the United States is global domination. This goal is shared by the entire political elite and major portions of the population, though it is nearly never discussed openly or directly. Instead, it is framed in terms of “American Leadership”, “New American Century”, and of course “American Exceptionalism” which is used to justify any policy that violates international law, treaties, or agreements. Given that every country which has not recognized “American Leadership” is described as a “regime”, there is no indication the US elite is interested in anything resembling peaceful coexistence with other sovereign states.
NATO plays a double role in achieving that goal. First, it is a military alliance that projects military power against anyone refusing to accept “American Leadership”. Military contributions by European member states are certainly important, not least by giving America the veneer of international legitimacy, but the presence of US bases on the European continent is far more so. US forces stationed in or staged out of European naval, air, and land bases are indispensable to its efforts to control the MENA region and to promote the US policy of driving a wedge between Europe on the one hand and Russia and China on the other. Secondly, a European country’s membership in NATO means a sacrifice of considerable portion of its sovereignty and independence to the United States. This is a wholly asymmetrical relationship, since US bases its forces in European countries and sells its weapons to them, not the other way around. The penetration of a European country thus achieved allows US intelligence service to develop agent networks and to employ the full range of lobbying techniques which have been particularly visible in the US efforts to press F-35 aircraft into the hands of NATO member states.
America’s self-appointed task is made not easier or harder by the fact that today’s NATO is therefore fragmented along both geographic and national power lines. The geographical divide is plainly easy to see: Norway and Denmark mainly care about the Arctic, Poland and Romania obsess about Russia, Mediterranean countries freak out about what’s happening in North Africa. The wrangling over sending more troops to Mali or to Estonia is the reflection of the differing security concerns of individual members of the far-flung pact. The power divide is less easy to see but more problematic for Washington. V_3 (A2) Of the European powers, only four—Germany, France, Italy, and Great Britain—may be considered to be powerful and independent political actors with which the US has to contend on anything like an equal basis. The first three form the core of the European Union, whereas Great Britain opted for Brexit, likely in part because of the looming big power struggle between the US and the EU that has the potential of degenerating into a destructive trade war. It is doubtful that the skirmishes over Huawei and North Stream 2 are anything but the opening salvoes in the confrontation over whether the EU will emerge as a political actor independent of the US, or be reduced to a collection of client states. Unfortunately, America’s task is made easier by the fact of the intra-European divisions mentioned above.
United States is pursuing development of several hypersonic missile systems with the aim of ultimately fielding very large numbers of them in order to be able to launch disarming first strikes against Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals. Since the weapons themselves are relatively short-ranged (though that may change once the US allows New START to lapse), they require basing close to their intended targets. That means having to find countries willing to base them in Europe, where it is liable to provoke a political debate of the magnitude comparable to that of the original Euromissile controversy of the 1980s. Since Germany is not interested in being reduced to the status of a US client, it has resisted the US on a variety of fronts, including the North Stream 2, the refusal to buy F-35s, and now also the lack of desire to host the new US missiles. Even the German defense spending increases are intended at least as much to counter US influence in Eastern Europe as the supposed Russian threat to NATO. The United States has responded using the usual array of tools: economic sanctions on any and all European entities participating in the project and even using the gas, apparently launching a cyber-attack that US-friendly German intelligence promptly blamed on Russia, and also threatening to move US troops out of Germany and possibly to Poland. There is even discussion and rumors that US nuclear weapons stationed in Germany might be moved to Poland.
The outcome of this so far is a power struggle between two NATO allies, US and Germany, over the political alignment of a third—Poland. While Germany has the power of EU institutions on its side and massive economic gravitational pull, US has cultivated a cadre of friends, possibly intelligence assets, as a result of post-9/11 collaboration in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in the realm of intelligence-sharing. This has produced a government more than willing to deploy US troops, missiles, and even nukes on Poland’s territory. The power of US influence is visible in Poland’s weapons procurement: Patriot, Javelin, HIMARS, F-35, and not a single comparable European system in recent years. The US weakness in this confrontation consists of the unwillingness to subsidize Poland economically which, combined with the ruling party’s fiscal irresponsibility, will make it difficult for the country to maintain its anti-German course in the longer term.
While in Eastern Europe US national security state is using Poland as a proxy against Germany, in the Mediterranean it has adopted Turkey as a proxy against France and Italy. After some hemming and hawing, the US hawks dropped the Kurds yet again, with Trump happily taking the blame, in order to piggy-back on Erdogan’s Libya ambitions to curtail French and Italian interests there. To be sure, Turkey retains far more autonomy in the relationship than Poland, which was unable or unwilling to play US and Russia and EU against one another in order to secure a measure of freedom of action. But the US Congress measures to allow the purchase of S-400 weapons from Turkey is an indicator that Turkey’s behavior is once again useful to the US. And even though Turkey was excluded from the F-35 program, its firms continue to make components for various assembly plants. The result has been a number of stand-offs between Turkish warships on one hand and French and Italian on the other off the coasts of Libya. And whereas France and Italy are backing the Marshal Haftar’s LNA, Turkey’s preferred proxy is the GNA, leading to a veritable “anti-Turkey” alliance being formed that includes Turkey’s old time NATO adversary Greece. While the US is officially aloof of the entire situation, in practice controlling Libya’s oil is part of the Washington strategy of “energy dominance” every bit as the North Stream 2 sanctions are.
The remarkable part of these two sets of conflicts among NATO powers is that in both cases Russia has sided with Germany and France against the US in both cases. It is Russia’s policies that are more beneficial to French and German interests than America’s, since Russia is not actually seeking to monopolize energy supplies to Europe in the way that the US clearly and openly is.
So far the US strategy consisted of steadily ratcheting up pressure through sanctions and proxies and occasional intelligence-generated anti-Russia provocations (sometimes helpfully delivered by British agencies), trying to find that happy middle of policies that actually force Germany, France, and Italy to change their policies and which do not force a permanent breach in the trans-Atlantic relationship. But the cracks in the relationship are clearly visible and they are not attributable to Trump’s erratic and brusque manner. It is the US Congress which passed the successive rounds of anti-North Stream 2 sanctions, with strong partisan majorities. It means the assertion of US control over European major powers is part of the US agenda. Since that agenda is motivated by a US political and economic crisis of a magnitude not seen since the 1930s, there is little likelihood Biden’s presidency would represent a radical departure from the current trend.
Of course, for Germany, France, and Italy to successfully resist US encroachment they would first need to transform the EU into something closer than a federation. The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic crisis already providing considerable impetus for such a transformation, America’s insatiable appetites might provide the rest.
Good to see in print the plain unvarnished truth – that America is seeking world domination as shown in one of its symbols which uses an octopus with it’s tendrils around the globe, hidden behind it’s euphemisms.**
Surely along with all other agencies of aggression and attack on sovereign nations, the Americans have a unit which understands and directs use of – language. Words, impressions, language, with which to baffle, bewilder, hide, subvert and manipulate perceptions. It’s been unacknowledged that this is widespread, which is a tribute to it’s huge success. Hidden in plain sight; obscure to almost all users of language. They even managed to label a huge part of the earth and Russia with a name which was coined as a word of racist contempt and dystopian futurism such that the very objects of it’s contempt themselves use it unknowingly!!!
** [.https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-story-behind-the-comically-villainous-octopus-logo-of-us-spy-agency….. ].
We truly cannot attack any problem, seek any solution, understand any complexity, until we state the truth and own it. AA showed this with its long standing first step towards controlling addiction; the requirement to be able to say “I am Fred Blogs, and I am an alcoholic”.
Until we can all make these categorical statements and own them, we are getting no-where; this stands as much for any American seeing the disintegration of their nation and wanting to stop it, as for those nations wanting to stop American Hegemonic Aggression swallowing them whole.
Putin has done this with Russians, telling them clearly that “if we keep blaming someone else for our problems, we’re never going to get anywhere”.
However, I’m curious about this statement: “United States is pursuing development of several hypersonic missile systems with the aim of ultimately fielding very large numbers of them in order to be able to launch disarming first strikes against Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals. Since the weapons themselves are relatively short-ranged (though that may change once the US allows New START to lapse), they require basing close to their intended targets. ”
Dont know when it was written, but in the light of the development of Russias’ New Generation weapons, with hypersonic superiority, it seems outdated. Russia is clearly streets ahead of anyone – including the Exceptionally Evil Empire – in weaponry and, as V.V. has clearly said “by the time they catch up – we will be further ahead still”.
Moreover using the idiot Balkans and some European nations as bases from which to launch missiles into Russia has been circumvented by the announcement that V.V. made when first revealing the new weaponry; that should any incoming attack on Russia from any Northern Continent nation be detected – and blocked – the source control point of that launch pad will also be targetted for annihilation. Thus, should a base in Virginia give an “order to launch” to a missile pad in Latvia, not only Latvia will be destroyed – but also Virginia.
I wonder SF does not seem to taking this into account here.
” It’s been unacknowledged that this is widespread, which is a tribute to it’s huge success.”
Evaluation is always a function of purpose.
Increasing applications, dosages and recipients are not generally held to be indicators of “huge success” except in some evaluations of big pharma and others who are actively involved in the destruction of their “markets”.
“We truly cannot attack any problem, seek any solution, understand any complexity, until we state the truth and own it. ”
The attempted denials of your observation were significant components in facilitating the demise of the “Soviet Union”, the most obvious myth makers residing in the Gosplan offices accross the road from the now demolished Moscow hotel.
Like Gosplan, many in many countries are rewarded ( at least in the short-term) to propagate myths, whilst some only have facility to propagate myths, partly as a function of educational/employment policies/get-with-the-teamness, whilst some others believe that everything is mythical, continuing attempted denials of your observation.
You may wonder whilst others proceed from wonder to implementing opportunities derived therefrom, which may in some assay address your wonder in respect of SF sometimes known as “Science Fiction”.
During the “Cultural Revolution” in China a good grounding in Marxist/Leninist/Maoist thought was held to be sufficient qualification to engage in certain activities which in a limited number of cases included medicine.
The outcomes of testing such hypotheses were not as expected and/or not propitious which encouraged some to resort to belief – and/or “alternative facts” to bridge doubt.
If you would be understood, can I suggest you try to communicate with less obfuscation and semantics? Simple, direct sentences, carry clear meaning and are the tool of choice of the honest person who wishes to be understood..
I have always had an instant, intuitive suspicion of anyone who writes as you do. Frankly, I have no idea what you are talking about, which makes me feel there’s something hidden in what you have to say.
I cannot answer you, since I dont have a clue what you’re saying.
“which makes me feel there’s something hidden in what you have to say.”
Hidden to some but not to all.
“the tool of choice of the honest person who wishes to be understood..”
You apparently fail to understand both context and purpose, whilst retaining some assay of notions of joint purposes and facilities to attain such purposes, including but not restricted to register, logical flow and method.
If you read the purpose below you will note that it is to afford opportunities to others to test hypotheses if so minded: portals being potential pathways not destinations, although that appears counter-intuitive/contrary to experience and hence not plausible to many, given that such opportunity is mostly precluded in many social relations.
Such are among the advantages of the “surveillance society” as is “publication” on broadcast, particularly when some believe in “publication” on publication, and hence seek to attempt affecting non-publication through censorship/moderation.
Thank you for your honest answer which unlike some neither attempts to bridge doubt by belief to attain “certainty”, nor seeks to bluff facilities which you do not yet have – both being regular resorts of opponents.
Not all have your confidence in acknowledging lack of knowledge; hence some emulate practices of the “Cultural Revolution” in China based on the notion that a good grounding in Marxist/Leninist/Maoist thought (or any resort to belief) is a sufficient qualification to undertake almost any task.
Derivates of such beliefs facilitate the oxymoron “Representative Democracy”, an empty vessel which others fill with their content of “choice”.
Enjoy your journey.
“You apparently fail to understand both context and purpose” … this is as arrogant a statement as I’ve yet read on here.
I’ll leave you to paddle in your own puddle. It carries nothing of interest to me.
It’s a troll Pamela. Meaningless giberish is a Marxist theme.
Yes, I remembered actually, I’ve come across this one before. A few years ago and another site – his meaningless gibberish does have a “pattern” and I’ve remembered it. Forget the name he flew under, as one does, of course.
But I didn’t realise it was a Marxist a trick. Always happy to learn something new – thank you.
Due to UK leaving EU Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe…..has the USA lost influence over EU by that route… or it did not matter much and they have compensated by other means….or is PACE a place where EU can control or influence each other in any way against or for USA ….is there just blind acceptance or objections or much discussion etc re USA influence?
“NATO 2020: A Coalition of the Unwilling”
Nato has always been simultaneously a coalition of the unwilling, a coalition of the willing, and the non-involvement of classes and persons whose willingness/unwillingness was never wholly acertained..
The “members” of NATO have never all shared the same purpose simultaneously since before the Imperial General Staff’s meeting in London March 1943, which discussed various “strategies/wishes” to maximise “post-war” spheres of influence of the “United Nations” excepting the “Soviet Union” – one of which being NATO – which was a component part of the reasons why Mr. Allan Dulles, supposedly representing no-one, and Mr. Karl Wolff acting on behalf of the de-facto successor state to the Third Reich (despite the illusions of Mr. Hitler, Mr. Doenitz and others), namely the SS and its networks not restricted to “intelligence”, affected a surrender of “Axis forces” in Central Europe on or about the 1st/2nd of May 1945.
This arrangement was facilitated/obfuscated by the myth of the last potential stand of “Fascist” Werewolves and others in Northern Italy/Southern Bavaria/Southern Tyrol (Alpine redoubt), the area which almost immediately became key in the ratlines through which people of dubious provenance affected Persilschein and/or complete change of identity facilitated by “US intelligence”, The Red Cross, the Roman Catholic church and others.
This never sharing of purpose is more apparent when “membership” is not framed in the juridical notions of “nation states” but widened to include classes and persons residing in the juridical notion “nation states”.
” It means the assertion of US control over European major powers is part of the US agenda.”
For some classes and persons that was one of the purposes of NATO since before March 1943, although even at that juncture the Imperial General Staff and some advisors voiced unwillingness at the “danegeld/tribute” contingent upon such control, but given the surrender of “Axis” forces at Stalingrad on the 1st/2nd of February 1943 and some “assurances” from other parties, they agreed to acquiesce to the general principle leaving some “details” to be subsequently agreed..
“The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic crisis already providing considerable impetus for such a transformation”
Hence not a transformation – the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated economic crisis already providing considerable impetus to dances/trances around fixed points to remain the same, the performance apparently enjoying some sucess in regard to potential target audiences.
Thank you for your feedback, OlyPola. That is exactly the way it happens imho too.
“That is exactly the way it happens imho too.”
Humility is always a virus against hubris, but in some assays the virus can be prejudicial to the host.
Reliance on opinion is an attempt to bridge doubt by belief to attain comfort/confirmation bias: understandable in some social relations where the myth of “certainty” is evangelised, although this virus is also prejudicial to the host.
To transcend this practice rendering doubt as catalyst to transcend bridging doubt by belief develops perception rather than emulates perception – one of the bases of science.
In science doubts are outlined to afford others the opportunity to test hypotheses if so minded: affording others opportunities to co-operate in transcending the practice of bridging doubt by belief.
If no doubts and/or no comments are deemed relevant, in some social relations silence is often held to be the appropriate response, since “approximate knowledge” – the only option available in the absence of omniscience and/or constructs of ultimate backstops including Gods, is not derived on the basis of voting on constructed binaries.
In some social relations where attribution is held to be key – an example being the need to publish (fill the silence) in order to maintain “relevance” – the transcendence is increasingly short circuited contributing to various phenomena including, but not limited to, products of the Boeing Corporation falling from the sky.
Thank you for your co-operation by way of your feedback.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/07/31/russiagate-nazis-and-the-cia/
Limited and simplistic as is most journalism.
The points about Klaus Barbie and Mr. Guevara have some basis, but Mr. Guevara made it easier by forgetting to take his asthma medication into the mountains – his hubris being to the disadvantage of his co-operators, excepting Mr. Debray.
NATO was a misrepresentation from inception and never restricted to the “North Atlantic”.
As you are probably aware “The weak will inherit the earth” requires modification to read “The weak will inherit the earth since the wise don’t think it is property” to the disappointment of some who believe rapturously that they have “God on their side”.
Enjoy your journey.
” “The weak will inherit the earth”
This is not rendered in the King James VI translation, but in the adjusted “American” perception predicated on the conflation meek/weak, in illustration that words are empty vessels which others “invest” with their “own” contents.
Total Spectrum Dominance has been declared by the Overlords. One aspect of this is total control of electromagnetic waves. By controlling electromagnetic waves, they can program our minds and our DNA to serve their purposes. They are accomplishing this with pollution which lowers human frequencies, nuclear radiation, electromagnetic radiation which will be enhanced with 5G, GMO food, electronic “channels” which narrow our perceptions to the reality that they want to impose. The educational system and the controlled media are programmed to channel our perceptions into these narrow fields. Bill Gates, the modern day Rasputin, wants to “innoculate” everyone and insert chips into them for his eugenics project where they will breed perfect slaves who will serve the Overlords and entertain them with wars.
They say that resistance is futile, but awareness and education of how to minimize these influences can defeat them easily, because that would create immunity to their false powers over us. Artificial intelligence is alien intelligence that has no regard for humankind.
“By controlling electromagnetic waves, they can program our minds and our DNA to serve their purposes”
Do you have any evidence for this please? I am aware of a growing body of research which is showing how Wireless emissions can cause biological changes at the DNA level which are detrimental to cell health, but not of how they can “program our minds”. Mind is not brain – they are different, just as “running” is not bones – it just uses them.
I suspect our minds are more ours to determine than most are aware, or are prepared to take responsibility for, as this requires us to do the extensive work essential to make sure they are working well and using good material.
Mind, being on a journey, freedom are liberal fantasies. Most people will be happy to delegate their choices to apps and computers (it’s happening now) as they are more reliable than other people and we will merge into biochemical and electronic algorithms. We have no choice. People of our age are rapidly becoming obsolete and can’t understand or cope with what’s round the corner.
This thread of discussion is leading far off-topic of the article. Please take to the MFC. Further discussion on this line under this post will be trashed, mod.
“Mind is not brain…”
Exactly.
“Control” is effected by propaganda and similar forms of conditioning – mainly through emotion-based manipulation.
Anything electronic will only effect the physical brain, not the mind, the reason being that the mind functions at a substantially subtler (or “higher”) vibratory plane than the brain waves.
There is of course, telepathy, or mind-to-mind communication, but that’s another matter altogether… But even here, no one can force you to accept what is being transmitted. Anyone can always say, “Yes, I hear you, but I don’t agree, and the answer is no.”
This thread of discussion is leading far off-topic of the article.
Please take to the MFC. Further discussion on this line under this post will be trashed, mod.
Bill Gates is the self confessed great depopulator and is clearly now frontman for the elites. will want only a modicum of slaves for their labour. A main plank of the elite’s plan is to rid the planet of its great masses and give it a chance to recover from the stresses and strains of providing for 7 billion plus hungry mouths. What better way to achieve these “laudable” aims, than by a program of vaccination which the masses will be clamouring for? So many deaths, but of course, Covid-20 or 21 and so forth will get the blame. Genocide will never have been so easy and all over by 2030.
This thread of discussion is far off-topic of the article. Further discussion on this line under this post will be trashed, mod.
David M Opas:
Artificial intelligence is neither alien nor human. It is absolutely neutral and serves its implemented program/structure/commands.
To insert “chips” into the human body means mainly to gain control over its movements.
Much much more concern should be nowadays drawn to the fact that all Western countries control its populace.
At least within the EU which serves in some ways too the USA.
You cannot move neither with your body as long as you are connected to some sort of electromagnetic devices; nor you can buy anything as long as you are using credit cards or bank cards; you cannot visit websites without Google and other “Social Media” collecting your movements and your contacts (and most probably you will have all these “movements and contacts” registered in a file with your name on it as a prominent TV program showed in Europe!).
If you have a bank account, even only where your salary is transferred and you take money out, they have a lot of your personal “identity” registered. If not complete (according to their stipulated “rules”), it could be, that you get asked more about your “personal life” some day. All within governmental laws.
Having now the virus SARS CoV-2 we shall see what will come.
G5 is as “dangerous” as the G4. G3 etc. And it concerns the use of it. The “propaganda” against it which is mostly based by US fear that other countries will lead the AI now or in the near future.
Who leads the AI (Artificial Intelligence) will have advantage over others, thats for sure and that is feared by USA.
Supermarkets register – as an example – how buyers are moving etc. and its goods (whatever it is sold) will from time to time put accordingly to sell i.e. more sweets.
Moreover, some big markets. have moderate music which is too based on surveys how people will react buying more, eating more etc.
However, USA (and maybe other countries too) have programs to investigate the minds of people (especially in USA, as something like this happened in the fifties of last century where doctors prescribed some sorts of heavy drugs like Heroin etc. which were pure toxic and patients didn’t even know which drugs they got and therefore without consent to such experiments !!).
There are other points which should be discussed by the people however, everybody is so much concerned about job or other things and doesn’t care.
This thread of discussion is far off-topic of the article. Further discussion on this line under this post will be trashed, mod.
“Total Spectrum Dominance”
That has been evangelised/attempted on various ocassions and remains unachieved thereby dispelling some the myths of hegemony and overlordship to some.
That hubris was particularly prevalent during the attempt at colour revolution in Russia during the 1990’s which failed with the encouraged complicity of would be dominators facilitating the Russian Federation and the Russian Constitution of 2020.
“They say that resistance is futile,”
That is a recurring attempted practice of coercive social relations whether the mantra is “Apres nous le deluge” or the “End of History”.
Given dispositions and consequences, present coercive social relations facilitates possible deluges which some hope are raptures and hence ” awareness and education of how to minimize these influences” are not sufficient in themselves to “defeat them easily”.
Although like all knowledge such seems “counter-intuitive” the lack of awareness and education of some facilitates opportunities to transcend them, including by increasing noise/signal ratios, if notions of victory/defeat are understood to be emulative of the coercive social relations that some seek to transcend.
“I suspect our minds are more ours to determine than most are aware, or are prepared to take responsibility for, as this requires us to do the extensive work essential to make sure they are working well and using good material.”
That was the conclusion of the MK-Ultra project led by Mr. Gottlieb for and on behalf of the CIA and why it was curtailed whilst the myths that surrounded it continued to be propagated to the “target audiences”.
At various points there have also been experiments on the potential of electronic waves in respect of many targets including humans.
Like big pharma the CIA tends to spend less on research than on marketing.
”The problem with alliances is that they ultimately either become victims of their own success, or cannot figure out what to do with themselves once the original rationale disappears.”
In NATO’s case, this is partly misleading. Even if we accept the pious explanation that NATO was about protecting Western Europe from aggressive Soviet designs, it’s plain to see that the demise of the USSR posed zero problems for NATO to figure out ”what to do next”. Up to the 1990s, NATO still hadn’t explicitly sanctioned or carried out any bombings. With the USSR gone, it didn’t take long before Yugoslavia was broken up and broken down while NATO swiftly gobbled up a whole host of countries.
But there is a grain of truth about success being a source of decay. NATO is the armed wing of Western imperialism. After having defeated the USSR and the socialist camp completely, Western imperialism felt emboldened to tear up the social contract with its own domestic mass base. With the resurgence of Russia and the inexorable rise of China, NATO’s own authority and prestige are hanging in the balance, especially due to the Syrian misadventure and the ensuing nasty betrayal by letting in large numbers of refugees into the EU. And, yes, I think the Pindo regime’s hatred of the Nord Stream 2 project makes perfect sense from the Pindo regime’s point of view.
@ Nussiminen
Yes, everything you said here is correct.
“… the ensuing nasty betrayal by letting in large numbers of refugees into the EU …” in fact reveals the elephant in the room, whose presence many are afraid even to acknowledge.
The whole idea of EU revolves around a systematic destruction of national identities and national cultures of its participants. What started innocently enough as a mere economic trade alliance (the EEC of 1958), had since been skilfully re-engineered into a political supra-national monster that we see today. It goes way beyond the free movement of its own populace across the “internal” borders; the EU “laws” supersede the laws of the member states; ongoing is even a discussion of an EU army.
And if the objective is to erase all the vestiges of national consciousness’ of the participating nations therein, to ethnically “homogenise” (!) them, what more handy additional tool could there possibly be, than to open wide the flood gates to culturally and ethnically alien hordes from Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere?
So, the question is, Qui Bono?
No matter what would happen to each and every European nationality in such a nightmare, only one particular group, a particular tribe that holds no specific patch of land in Europe but is truly omnipresent there, would be eminently exempt of ethnic, cultural and religious oblivion. If the above depicted nightmare fully materialised, that tribe would for the first time in two millennia, since the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, not be an unwelcome intruder in someone else’s home – simply because no one else in Europe would then have one.
For supporting evidence one does not have to look very far. “Follow the money.” One has only to trace the world’s $ trillions behind the leaders, structures and policies of the EU to the actual sources.
“So, the question is, Qui Bono?”
For those with facility the outcome is always us, sometimes facilitated by the encouragement of others belief in the usness of them..
For those with limited if any facility, typically illustrated by resort to the question “Cui bono ?”, the outcome is usually not us, catalysing resort to bridge doubt by belief to attain confirmation bias facilitating their continued role of spectators by their belief in usness.
Cui bono was a question to catalyse expectations/prejudgements posed by Romans – a propaganda tool/belief to initiate bridging doubt by belief to attain confirmation bias – a function which it continues to perform.
Practitioners tend not to pose “Cui bono” but pose and implement how tos facilitated by others belief in usness.
““Follow the money.” has similarly been a slogan popular with spectators, which in times of fiat facilitates their enmazement in “virtual reality” whilst affording opportunities of approximating/calculating/emulating the rates of immersion of others in “virtual reality” akin to the medieval conundrum of “How many angels can balance on the point of a pin?”
@ OlyaPola
Sorry, but what exactly is it that you are trying to say, if anything that is? The only thing clear is that you are not addressing the issue at hand, presented above. Indeed, what could the medieval metaphysical arguments about “number of angels on a pin” possibly have to do with the problems of EU?…….
“The only thing clear is that you are not addressing the issue at hand, presented above.”
The existence of phenomena is not dependent on perception of these phenomena.
I have made a reply to Pamela on July 26, 2020 at 5:14 pm EST/EDT at circa 22-10 EST/EDT on 26/6/20. which may explain purpose if it is subsequently “published” on publication through this portal, the publishing by broadcast/transmission being effected at circa 22-10 EST/EDT and in other time zones.
The issue at hand and the response are both understood by some but not by all, and hence communication has been achieved in respect of OlyaPola on July 26, 2020 · at 10:19 am EST/EDT, but apparently not with you.
Thank you for your illustration of some of the contents in the petri dish of the opponents culture illustrated by “but what exactly is it that you are trying to say, if anything that is? The only thing clear is that you are not addressing the issue at hand, presented above.” – in simple terms a reprise of its-always-somebody-else-to-blameness.
Enjoy your journey.
@ OlyaPola
That what you wrote here again makes no discernible sense is apparently not your fault. One can only wish you well.
My associates and I don’t think we are omniscient, but we don’t resort to belief either.
“That what you wrote here again makes no discernible sense is apparently not your fault.”
Some social relations encourage the conflation of facility/fault and the conflation default/design in the hope that all resort to belief.
Hence perhaps your 1 st sentence should read something like “That what you wrote here again makes no discernable sense to me, apparently a function of your design and my experience/facility.”
Some social relations encourage “insecruties/guilt” in those who can “make no discernable sense”, where as my associates and I practice equal and different and to us “making no discernable sense” when acknowledged facilitates co-operation.
Some social relations which encourage “insecurities/guilt” in those who can “make no discernable sense” consequently encourage resort to belief to bridge doubt and the over-estimation by some of their own facilities –
Mr. Trump being only one example of this whilst being representative of many of the opponents – which was partly alluded to by Ms. Zakharova.
As a consequence of all of the above the opponents often believe that their beliefs/hopes/wishes are “strategies”, that they are “exceptional”, and have “God on their side” whilst in reality – not virtual- products of the Boeing Corporation fall from the sky.
So thank you for your honesty.
“One can only wish you well.”
As outlined above we don’t indulge in the concept “wish” but embrace and practice doubt, a tend to remain silent when this is the appropriate response.
A cultural example.
The first McDonald’s “restaurant” opened accross from the main telephone station on Gorky Street in Moscow in May 1993 if memory serves.
It attracted a big queue partly due to curiosity and consequently some in the queue became frustrated (despite years of practice during the Soviet Union).
After one customer had received his “treat” the server went into the prepared script – “Have a nice day”
There was an uproar including approximately “How can we have a nice day when we have queued a long time to end up with this s+IT”
Not all Russians were/are like this; some others when wished well interpreted this as the wisher’s interpretation
that the recipient was so inept as to rely on wishes, then they considered further to understand that the wisher depended on wishes and to the wisher this seemed reasonable, and hence this was an opportunity to render the wishers useful fools – after all they were attempting a “colour revolution” and comparing prostitutes’ assets and other accomplishments in the “ex-pat” publication eXile and elsewhere.
Hence to paraphrase Mr. Orwell “All are equal and different, but some are differently equal than others.
Enjoy your journey.
@ Nussiminen
Yes, everything you said here is correct.
“… the ensuing nasty betrayal by letting in large numbers of refugees into the EU …” in fact reveals the elephant in the room, whose presence many are afraid to even acknowledge.
The whole idea of EU revolves around a systematic destruction of national identities and national cultures of its participants. What started innocently enough as a mere economic trade alliance (the EEC of 1958), had since been skilfully re-engineered into a political supra-national monster that we see today. It goes way beyond the free movement of its own populace across the “internal” borders; the EU “laws” supersede the laws of the member states; ongoing is even a discussion of an EU army.
And if the objective is to erase all the vestiges of national consciousness’ of the participating nations therein, to ethnically “homogenise” (!) them, what more handy additional tool could there possibly be, than to open wide the flood gates to culturally and ethnically alien hordes from Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere?
So, the question is, Qui Bono?
No matter what would happen to each and every European nationality in such a nightmare, only one particular group, a particular tribe that holds no specific patch of land in Europe but is truly omnipresent there, would be eminently exempt of ethnic, cultural and religious oblivion. If the above depicted nightmare fully materialised, that tribe would for the first time in two millennia, since the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, not be an unwelcome intruder in someone else’s home – simply because no one else in Europe would then have one.
For supporting evidence one does not have to look very far. “Follow the money.” One has only to trace the world’s $ trillions behind the leaders, structures and policies of the EU to the actual sources.
“The problem with alliances is that they ultimately either become victims of their own success, or cannot figure out what to do with themselves once the original rationale disappears.”
Such premise is erroneous.
NATO is not an alliance but rather the embodiment of Anglo Zionist dominance over the whole western civilization.
Let s say that western Nato members are as willing as low income salaried people in a capitalistic environment.
Where the Anglo Zionist would be the owner of the company, the bank and all the houses !
Maybe the low income earner feel willing but that is only illusion.
Howver the low income earner in truth is only a slave. A slave with an illusion of freedom and who is even consenting to its own slavery !
“The original Cold War-era NATO was a relatively cohesive entity led by one of the two superpowers, with most of its members being the industrialized democracies of Western Europe, with West Germany being its eastern-most European member, and alliance planning revolving around USSR. But even then there were cracks in the alliance.”
Again erroneous.
The quest of Anglo Zionist dominance over the western civilization date back several centuries through beating into submission the French empire and subsequently Germany with 2 world wars.
Just making start the NATO story and internal western geopolitics with USSR is idiotic to say the least.
The long game has always been to beat into submission never an alliance.
The reason NATO is shaking is because the US has collapsed, military and economically and morally through corrupt and nonsensical policies for more than 30 years.
The US has squandered trillions for geopolitical net loss in the ME and no military victory with no adequat peace settlement.
The US has offshored jobs/industry in China for short term financial gain for the only benefit of the 1%. Thus the economic collapse.
Morally the US has collapsed internally with net loss in democratic institution (media concentration, end of glass steagal act, no limit in private funding of politicals parties by individuals, and so on and so forth…) all those net regressive policies can easily be traced back to the Clinton administration as well as the SCOTUS inept decisions just in the aftermath of the fall of USSR.
US moral ground at internationnal level has been eroded by their criminal dealing of the Eltsin’s Russia. Also by their inept and criminal wars. Killings millions and displacing much more. Financing terrorism.
With such crude and delirious propaganda as the war against evil. What a shame…
Truth be said NATO decaying and death is only the reflection in the mirror of the US and western civilization.
Sad to say. It is ugly reflection of a dying dream a decadent civilization.
To sum it up : the article is only scratching the surface of the issue just like all mainstream papers with academic babblings.
The real issue in NATO demise is the moral and transcendent corruption of the US thinking and policies.
The real issue is the swamp.
Excellent comment; I agree completely. (Be nice if you could let us know who you are),
I felt that the original article was struggling to express the confusion and loss of purpose of the member states of NATO. A bit like a reified character from a play after the death of the author. How would you like to wake up to find yourself a ghost of a person who never lived? (I know, that’s pretty far fetched — for wasn’t NATO once alive?)
The treaty organization never once did serve its ostensible purpose. It can’t feel honorable to be protecting the Unites States from a land invasion from Afghanistan. Nor bombing the countries of former Yugoslavia.
NATO had at least one beneficial consequence: the Soviet Union felt forced to create the Warsaw Pact, which worked to protect Eastern Europe from many corrupting influences from the West.
Maybe I should have made clear that ’nasty betrayal’ was said tongue-in-cheek. Whitey was confident, especially after NATO’s glorious victory-against-totalitarianism and the promotion of vulgar Islamophobia in the Ziomedia, that now Whitey had reached Nirvana (Fukuyama-style). But the attempt by Western imperialism and its Turkish and Saudi stooges to bring regime change to Syria revealed an entirely different agenda with regard to the Euro-trash. Erdogan with his top sense of smell, Western putrefaction to be more specific, understood precisely how to solve the problem posed by the influx of Syrian refugees. So NATO ended up orchestrating a population transfer — Muslim Arabs mostly — between its Turkey and EU members. Of course, in the eyes of most of the EU’s 99% this was indeed a nasty betrayal and a flat-out ’Bugger you!’ from the 1%. Meanwhile, in Libya where NATO’s regime change violence succeeded, the result was entirely similar. NATO overthrew Ghadaffi, instantly corroborating Ghadaffi’s predictions about what would happen: Swamping of Italy with refugees and consolidation of new Mafias of African origin. Even for the time-honoured Italian business of organized crime, NATO’s actions have turned out to be a ”mixed blessing” (criminal agro-business still benefit from the influx of unprotected workers as per caporalato).
At bottom, what it all comes down to is that Whitey was fooled by the 1% in general and neoliberalism in particular. Neoliberalism is unapologetically and utterly elitist and it cuts both ways; wreaking havoc in the First and Third World alike. With stiffening resistance from Russia, China, and Iran, NATO’s authority and prestige are being seriously challenged in Western Europe.
NATO is basically a bureaucracy, and like all bureaucracies it needs to survive and expand. The original rationale for its existence was to keep Western Europe safe from the Russian hordes. That has long been forgotten if it ever was true in the first place. There are too many careers and monies tied up with NATO’s continued existence therefore it keeps going. A term used by sociologists – goal displacement – that is to say that the original purpose of its existence has now be displaced by a new imperative: existence is an end in itself. This is not a contemporary phenomenon, Joseph Schumpeter summed it up exactly. He contended that in Egypt ‘a class of professional soldiers’ formed during the war against the Hyksos persisted even after those wars were over along with its warlike ‘along with its warlike interests and instincts’ Schumpeter capped this part of the narrative with this pithy summary of the viewpoint thus: ‘Created by the wars that required it, the machine now created the wars that were required.’
@ Nussiminen
Sure at the bottom is the clear failure of all US policies for more than 30 years.
As goes the saying history is made by the victorious party.
And the US is clearly on the losing side of history for decades.
And the reason of that is the US moral and transcendent corruption.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the goal of the United States is global domination. This goal is shared by the entire political elite and major portions of the population, though it is nearly never discussed openly or directly. Instead, it is framed in terms of “American Leadership”, “New American Century”, and of course “American Exceptionalism” which is used to justify any policy that violates international law, treaties, or agreements. Given that every country which has not recognized “American Leadership” is described as a “regime”, there is no indication the US elite is interested in anything resembling peaceful coexistence with other sovereign states.
This brief paragraph crystallizes the essence of the American Empire in its entirety–particularly America’s wars of aggression; economic warfare/sanctions; political destabilization/balkanization campaigns; and media infowars.
It’s a rhetorical coup d’grace.