MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘NATO’

Goldfish in Chief

Posted by M. C. on September 19, 2023

To have a man like Obama publicly “forget” his role in the destruction of Libya and the carnage that has been wrought across the globe in the name of U.S. hegemonic policy is not so much insensitive as it is merely typical. We can sit back and say “shame on him” for such indifference, but maybe we need to look in the mirror and reserve the shame for ourselves. We are the ones who have continued to make it possible.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/goldfish-in-chief/

by Kym Robinson

united states president barack obama

WASHINGTON D.C., USA – Sep 18, 2014: United States President Barack Obama during an official meeting with the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in Washington, DC (USA)

Former U.S. President Barack Obama recently put out a tweet with a link to organizations that may be of some help to the people of Libya due to recent floods. NATO was absent from the list.

If you’re looking to help people impacted by the floods in Libya, check out these organizations providing relief: https://t.co/Vc9kbNgFuE

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 15, 2023

Whoever runs the former president’s social media is likely unaware why some responded with sarcasm or dismay that the former commander in chief who presided over the intervention that caused the ruination of Libya would post such a token tweet. That is, after all, the nature of politics: a distinct disconnect from outcomes and consequences by those who lie, cheat, and charm their way to the top of the pyramid of power.

In 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring, energies washed across the region as people (and other elements) sought to overthrow dictators. Some were supported by the West, others like Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi were sacrificial foes to be toppled. In a media campaign to justify their war, U.S. and NATO warmongers invented claims about the tyrant when in reality the truth of his regime should have been sufficient. They needed another villain, so Ronald Reagan’s foe from the 80s was back. The U.S. supported opposition warlords, terrorists, and foreign fighters as Libya fell into a terrible civil war. Qaddafi was toppled and executed in the dirt, NATO airstrikes blasted away his kingdom, and to this day the destruction and repercussions remain. The Obama regime pushed for NATO and UN missions to stop “genocide,” but Libya ended up with slavery, terror, endless war, and poverty. U.S. involvement led to a catastrophe that will last a generation or more for the people of Libya, and Obama and Hilary Clinton are the chief architects of such misery.

President Obama certainly had charm; he was articulate and a stark contrast to the bumbling butt of Michael Moore and Will Ferrell punchlines, George W Bush or “Junior.” Obama was seductive to progressives and wealthy liberals. He even said antiwar things. He was the “Hope and Change” president, a contrast to the McCains and Romneys that ran against him. Obama seemed slightly human, not in a Bill Clinton sleaze manner but as a person who (to a degree) meant what he said. Instead, he would go on to boast about his ability to perform extra judicial killings and expand the legacy of his predecessor. He was nothing more or less than another U.S. president.

Outside of the ritual of American party politics, words like liberal, neocon, conservative, or progressive don’t really mean much to the rest of the world. Only the constant of another U.S. president and permanent fixture of a powerful U.S. government forces those words into conversations within an empire of lies, conveniently short term memories, and supposedly benevolent violence. So it is with such an insolent tweet that one could come to expect a man like Obama to make, without any sense of ownership. It’s much the same way that Junior could paint victims of the wars he helped make possible. Presidents are liars. They lie to themselves as much they do to the rest of the world. It is how they ascend the ranks of a hierarchy built on lies.

The astounding thing is that every cycle a population of enablers participate in the democratic ritual of selecting the political zombies who linger on like a miasma of death to the new up and comers, who seemingly come from the outside to shake things up. Obama was one such candidate, along with Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, and even Richard Nixon in many ways. Although these presidents have a tendency of growing the thing they promised to shrink (or at least expand it in other areas), President Obama expanded the debt, the wars, and launched a new one against journalism. But he also looked nice on television, so for those who did not pay attention he was a leader to be proud of. Most voters don’t seem to pay attention. It’s the facade and packaging that matters most.

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Barack Obama Belongs In A F****** Cage

Posted by M. C. on September 18, 2023

And that would of course be a fine and normal thing for America’s 44th president to do — had America’s 44th president not personally played a massive role in paving the way to the devastation we’re seeing in Libya today.

And that’s exactly what the Obama administration set out to do: pouring weapons into Syria with the goal of effecting regime change, once again on the side of Al Qaeda-linked fighters. Had Russia not intervened in 2015 to prevent Damascus from being toppled, Syria would likely have suffered the same fate as Libya.

https://substack.com/inbox/post/137095018

Caitlin Johnstone

The Twitter account of America’s 44th president just casually shared some links to organizations providing relief to the victims of the terrible flooding in Libya, which as of this writing has already killed thousands of people.

And that would of course be a fine and normal thing for America’s 44th president to do — had America’s 44th president not personally played a massive role in paving the way to the devastation we’re seeing in Libya today.

“If you’re looking to help people impacted by the floods in Libya, check out these organizations providing relief,” Obama tweeted.

Uhh, excuse me? Sir? You know you’re literally Barack Obama, right?

In 2010 the oil-rich Libya ranked higher on the UN Human Development Index than any other nation in Africa, with much better national infrastructure to protect itself from floods and other natural disasters. Today Libya is a chaotic humanitarian disaster where UN-backed investigators now say literal crimes against humanity have been taking place, including women being forced into sexual slavery.

What changed? If you’re reading this, you probably already know what changed.

In 2011, US, French and British forces helped rebels with extensive links to Al Qaeda kill Libya’s longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi, which immediately plunged the nation into violence, chaos, extremism and instability which persists to this day. It was later revealed that NATO powers knew they were backing murderous Al Qaeda-linked jihadists at the time. 

Falsely branded a “humanitarian intervention” designed to prevent alleged plans for genocide and Viagra-fueled mass rapes against peaceful protesters by Gaddafi’s troops, the NATO attack on Libya quickly morphed into a regime change operation which saw Gaddafi brutally lynched in the streets and dying after being stabbed in the anus with a bayonet. Years later in 2016 a UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee found that the narratives used to justify the intervention in Libya were “not supported by the available evidence.”

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NATO Chief Openly Admits Russia Invaded Ukraine Because Of NATO Expansion

Posted by M. C. on September 9, 2023

In reality Stoltenberg is just stating a well-established fact: contrary to the official western narrative, Putin invaded Ukraine not because he is evil and hates freedom but because no great power ever allows foreign military threats to amass on its borders  —  including the United States.

...because real power isn’t just controlling what happens but controlling what people think about what happens. That’s the real glue holding the US-centralized empire together, and the world will never have a chance at knowing peace until people start bringing consciousness to it.

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/nato-chief-openly-admits-russia-invaded?utm_campaign=email-post&r=iw8dv&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Caitlin Johnstone

During a speech at the EU Parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg clearly and repeatedly acknowledged that Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine because of fears of NATO expansionism.

His comments, initially flagged by journalist Thomas Fazi, read as follows:

The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.

The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.

So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.

Stoltenberg made these remarks as part of a general gloat about the fact that Putin invaded Ukraine to prevent NATO expansion and yet the invasion has resulted in Sweden and Finland applying to join the alliance, saying it “demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he’s getting the exact opposite.”

Stoltenberg’s remarks would probably have been classified as Russian propaganda by plutocrat-funded “disinformation experts” and imperial “fact checkers” if it had been said online by someone like you or me, but because it came from the head of NATO as part of a screed against the Russian president it’s been allowed to pass through without objection.

In reality Stoltenberg is just stating a well-established fact: contrary to the official western narrative, Putin invaded Ukraine not because he is evil and hates freedom but because no great power ever allows foreign military threats to amass on its borders  —  including the United States. That’s why so many western analysts and officials spent years warning that NATO’s actions were going to provoke a war, and yet when war broke out we were slammed with a tsunami of mass media propaganda repeating over and over and over again that this was an “unprovoked invasion”.

It would have been so very, very easy to prevent this horrific war. Off-ramp after off-ramp after off-ramp was passed to get us to where we’re at now. Chance after chance after chance to avoid all this pointless death and misery was passed up, both before 2014 and every year since. The US-centralized power structure knowingly chose this war, and it did so to advance its own interests. If people really, deeply understood this, the entire western empire would collapse.

It’s the damnedest thing how you’ll get called a Kremlin agent for saying that this war was provoked by NATO expansionism and that it serves US interests, even when NATO openly says this war was provoked by NATO expansionism and US officials keep openly saying that this war serves US interests.

The latest entry in the latter category came in the form of a Thursday tweet by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, which reads, “Standing with our allies against Russian aggression isn’t charity. In fact — it’s a direct investment in replenishing America’s arsenal with American weapons built by American workers. Expanding our defense industrial base puts America in a stronger position to out-compete China.”

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NATO Failed To Weaken Russia — So Just Make China The New Enemy? – Colonel Douglas Macgregor

Posted by M. C. on August 3, 2023

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Hannity Visibly Frustrated As RFK Jr. Dismantles Ukraine Talking Points

Posted by M. C. on July 27, 2023

Daniel McAdams

Hannity is so blatantly stupid it is astonishing. Nothing in his brain beyond memorized bumper stickers. How embarrassing that this is the best the MSM has to offer…Hannity is so blatantly stupid it is astonishing. Nothing in his brain beyond memorized bumper stickers. How embarrassing that this is the best the MSM has to offer…

He doesn’t have to be smart when the CIA is pulling his $tring$.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/hannity-visibly-frustrated-rfk-jr-dismantles-ukraine-talking-points

Tyler Durden's Photo

by Tyler Durden

With Tucker Carlson out at Fox, what remains are the usual neocon “talk radio personalities” drawing large viewership at the network, namely Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and some other lesser names. While long advancing conservative domestic policies and fighting the “culture wars”, their foreign policy messaging really hasn’t changed in decades—having more in common with George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Tom Cotton, or even Barack Obama.

So when someone with the ‘outsider’ views of the fiercely independent Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr squares up against someone like Hannity (who for years has donned a CIA pin while on air) in a one-on-one interview, fireworks ensue. That’s exactly what happened when the issue of Ukraine became a focal point during a town hall event Tuesday. It also didn’t take long for RFK Jr. to win over the crowd. Hannity wasn’t happy that RFK was “blaming America’s role in this” for the Ukraine crisis

Kennedy Jr. focused his comments on exposing NATO’s role in pushing Moscow into a corner, given its historic expansion east and turning Ukraine into a proxy, but Hannity sought to interrupt him multiple times

“Because of our pushing the Ukraine into the war—” RFK had begun, before the Fox host interrupted with, “We pushed them into it or did Putin invade?”

According to the response:

“Well, let me answer your question,” replied Kennedy Jr., who then accused the U.S. of sabotaging the Minsk agreements in 2014 and 2015, which aimed to end the Donbas war yet largely failed to stop the fighting between Russian separatists and Ukraine’s armed forces.

“Putin, in good faith, began withdrawing troops from the Ukraine. What happened? We sent Boris Johnson over there to torpedo it because we don’t want peace. We want the war with Russia,” he argued, drawing applause from the audience.

Kennedy then harped on the clearly documented history of NATO expansion east,

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Anderson Cooper Is A Disgusting CIA Goon

Posted by M. C. on July 20, 2023

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/anderson-cooper-is-a-disgusting-cia?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

In a recent CNN interview of US presidential candidate Cornel West, former CIA intern Anderson Cooper argued that the US invasion of Iraq was morally superior to the Russian attack on the city of Grozny.

Pushing back against West’s claim that NATO provoked the Russian invasion of Ukraine and his call for ceasefire negotiations, Cooper argued that Putin was too evil and murderous to agree to stop slaughtering people.

“I mean, you saw what he did to Grozny in the nineties,” Cooper said. “I mean, he flattened that city. Civilians were trapped in that city. The world didn’t come to the rescue of Grozny. He did exactly what he wanted to do. I mean, unchecked, he will slaughter people.”

“Well, I mean, unchecked, he will slaughter folk, unchecked, what we did in Iraq was slaughtering people, unchecked,” West replied, when Cooper began frantically interrupting him.

“Nation states do that and they are wrong. And when they’re wrong, you have to point it out,” West continued while Cooper talked over him.

“Look, again, I respect you,” Cooper said. “You know I love you, but I do think it’s inappropriate to compare the Russian bombing of Grozny, and what we witnessed there with the war in Iraq. I mean, to say that innocents were killed. I mean, there’s no doubt about it. I mean, the horrible things happen—”

“Half a million Iraqis killed, my brother? Half a million,” interjected West.

“I certainly understand,” said Cooper. “I also saw a lot of Americans getting killed. And I saw, you know, the horrors of Saddam Hussein.I don’t think it’s accurate to compare the pummeling of a city by Russian artillery, with civilians inside, pummeling every single day with the intention of just destroying and flattening a city with actions the US took.”

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The Brutal Reality of NATO’s Vilnius Summit

Posted by M. C. on July 17, 2023

Americans might want to know how their government can spend a trillion dollars per year on “defense” and in addition add another hundred billion or so for Ukraine and end up with…no ammo. Where did it go?

As astute military analyst William Schryver aptly observed, with Biden’s admission…

…the great myth of overwhelming US armaments supremacy has been exposed as little more than a modestly scaled boutique enterprise utterly ill-suited and ill-prepared to prosecute industrial warfare against a peer adversary.

By Daniel McAdams

Ron Paul Institute

The 2023 NATO Summit at Vilnius, Lithuania, is now but a memory. If I could characterize the summit in just two words, I would say, “reality bites.” And it bites both ways.

On the one hand the US and its NATO allies came face to face with the reality that endless promises of “unlimited” military aid to Ukraine to defeat Russia would not achieve that goal. Five weeks of the much-anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive have produced zero results. They have only snuffed out another estimated 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers, this time mostly drawn from the shrinking pool of forced – and barely trained – conscripts.

Promises are one thing, but as they say, “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” Or, adapted for our times, the US may be able to print money, but it cannot print weapons.

Thus when President Biden was asked right after agreeing to send Ukraine a tranche of ghastly cluster bombs why he did so, he replied, “we’ve run out of ammunition.” It was an incredible admission, particularly considering the massive increase in already astronomical US military spending.

As astute military analyst William Schryver aptly observed, with Biden’s admission…

…the great myth of overwhelming US armaments supremacy has been exposed as little more than a modestly scaled boutique enterprise utterly ill-suited and ill-prepared to prosecute industrial warfare against a peer adversary.

Americans might want to know how their government can spend a trillion dollars per year on “defense” and in addition add another hundred billion or so for Ukraine and end up with…no ammo. Where did it go?

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Is the United States Pursuing a Permanent Cold War with Russia?

Posted by M. C. on July 15, 2023

NATO’s attempt to enlist the rest of the world to isolate Russia and aid Ukraine has faltered badly. Seeking global unity for such a hostile approach once the Ukraine war ends would be greeted with derision throughout the “Global South.”

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/is-the-united-states-pursuing-a-permanent-cold-war-with-russia/

by Ted Galen Carpenter

usa and russian flags are cut with scissors. confrontation and t

USA and Russian flags are cut with scissors. Confrontation and the Cold War. Stock vector illustration.

There is growing speculation about how the Russia-Ukraine war might eventually end. Three competing scenarios are strong possibilities. The most likely outcome is a definitive Russian victory after a grinding, bloody struggle lasting several more years. As time drags on, Russia’s larger population and military will confer greater and greater advantages in the fighting, despite the lumbering, inefficient nature of the Kremlin’s forces.

The second most likely outcome is a frozen conflict roughly along the current battle lines. Fighting would end with an armistice rather than a formal peace treaty and reflect exhaustion on the part of both Ukraine and Russia. Such frozen conflicts already exist in places such as Kashmir, Cyprus, and most notably, Korea.

The least likely outcome would be a definitive victory by Ukraine, given Russia’s long-term logistical advantages. Unfortunately, both Washington and NATO have embraced that unrealistic objective, pledging continued Western military support and encouraging Kiev to stay the course, regardless of the mounting costs in blood and treasure to the Ukrainian people.

No matter how the war finally ends, the Biden administration and its NATO partners appear to have given surprisingly little consideration to what the West’s postwar relationship with Moscow will—or should—look like.

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Stoltenberg Admits NATO Began Preparing Ukraine for War with Russia Since 2014

Posted by M. C. on July 14, 2023

Coincidentally the same year the US overthrew the Russian/Ukrainian government because Ukraine accepted a much sweeter Russian economic recovery deal than the EU offered.

If the 9 year NATO/US superpower plan was to install a stand up comic as president, finance a neo-nazi militia running the military and get it’s ass kicked while running out of ammo equals success…I can’t wait to see the NATO/US superpower plan for war with China.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/stoltenberg-admits-nato-began-preparing-ukraine-war-russia-since-2014/5825682

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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted that the alliance had prepared Ukraine for war with Russia since 2014. At the same time, French Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced on July 12 that the French military has already trained 5,200 Ukrainian troops and plans to train a total of 7,000 troops by year’s end.

“France’s support for Ukraine is not weakening. […] Almost 5,200 Ukrainian soldiers have already been trained by France, including 1,600 in Poland. There will be almost 7,000 by the end of the year,” Lecornu tweeted.

According to Lecornu, Ukrainian troops are learning how to operate French military equipment transferred to them and practice modern combat tactics, such as forming battalions that can manoeuvre as a coherent tactical unit.

Meanwhile, the British government announced that more than 19,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been trained in the country over the past six months and that Ukraine can expect more material support.

“In the past six months, the UK has also expanded its military training programme for Ukrainian recruits. This programme has trained more than 19,000 soldiers to date and training for Ukrainian pilots in the UK will begin this summer,” the British government said in a statement.

The UK, through NATO, also plans to establish a medical rehabilitation centre “to support the recovery and return of soldiers to Ukraine’s lines of defence after being injured in combat.”

“[The British PM announced a] major new tranche of support for Ukraine, including thousands of additional rounds of Challenger 2 ammunition, more than 70 combat and logistics vehicles and a £50m support package for equipment repair,” the statement added.

Although these announcements are recent revelations, NATO training of the Ukrainian military is not new. Stoltenberg said that the Alliance began supporting the Ukrainian military long before the start of the war. 

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What’s a Defense Industrial Base, Lindsay Graham?

Posted by M. C. on July 12, 2023

Ours is already in deep trouble, and it’s not improved when the likes of Lindsey Graham want Ukraine to become part of NATO.

Graham’s idea is so stupid that it’s hard to believe that any large number of senators would support it. 

Biden said his decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine was not because they’re what the Ukrainians need but because we are running out of other munitions.

Some strategists have said, for example, that we’d run out of critical munitions in less than a week if we defended Taiwan against the coming Chinese attack.

https://spectator.org/whats-a-defense-industrial-base-lindsay-graham/

by JED BABBIN

In his long congressional career, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has occasionally been right, but not often. And when he isn’t right, he is explosively, extravagantly wrong.

READ MORE: China’s Advances in Space Warfare Are Terrifying

We have to remember that he was the late Sen. John McCain’s most worshipful follower, playing Tonto to McCain’s Lone Ranger. When McCain and Ted Kennedy pushed their immigration bill — which would have opened the southern border long before what President Joe Biden is doing now — Graham was a primary advocate for it.

Now, Graham is pushing an idea that is at least as bad and maybe worse: the admission of Ukraine to NATO before Putin’s war against it is over. He said: “Ukrainian NATO membership is vital to the future security of Europe and the world. I believe there is an overwhelming majority of senators supporting this proposition.”

Wiser men, such as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, have said that Ukraine should become a NATO member but only after the Russia war is over.

It’s obvious what would happen if Graham got his wish and Ukraine were admitted to NATO now. Ukraine would — and would have to — invoke the Article 5 provision in the NATO treaty for mutual defense, and we — and the other NATO nations — would be at war with Russia.

Graham’s idea is so stupid that it’s hard to believe that any large number of senators would support it. Aid to Ukraine still flows — the only good decision that Biden has made as president — while support for it is diminishing. But there is a problem with our continuing aid: Like Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, our defense arsenal is just about bare.

Biden’s announcement that he would send “cluster bombs” — ones that are released by a larger casing holding dozens of “bomblets” that are effective against troop concentrations but not vehicles — was a shock to some Democrats. They practically want us to outlaw cluster bombs. About 100 nations (including most NATO members) have agreed to never use them, but the United States and Ukraine haven’t.

Biden said his decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine was not because they’re what the Ukrainians need but because we are running out of other munitions. He said: “[T]he Ukrainians are running out of ammunition. The ammunition — they call them 155-millimeter weapons. This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it.”

So, let’s give them whatever we have lying around, not what they need.

The reason we are low on ammunition is not new to faithful readers of this column. We’re running so low on critical munitions — artillery rounds, short-range missiles, and more — because Biden, despite his half-hearted orders to replenish our arsenal, has found it nearly impossible to do so. (RELATED: Charlie Brown’s Pentagon)

Some strategists have said, for example, that we’d run out of critical munitions in less than a week if we defended Taiwan against the coming Chinese attack. This brings us to the question of our defense industrial base.

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