Should We Commit to Fight Russia — for Finland?
BY PAT BUCHANAN • UNZ REVIEW • APRIL 15, 2022
The prime ministers of Sweden and Finland, Magdalena Andersson and Sanna Marin, both signaled Wednesday that they will likely be applying for membership in NATO.
The “prospect” is most “welcome,” says The Washington Post: “Finland and Sweden Should Join NATO.”
The editorial was titled “A Way to Punish Putin.”
Before joining the rejoicing in NATO capitals, we might inspect what NATO membership for these two Nordic nations would mean for the United States.
Finland is a nation the size of Germany, but with a population only 4% of that of Russia and a border with Russia that is 830 miles long.
Should Finland join NATO, the United States, under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, would be obligated to go to war with the world’s largest nuclear power to retrieve Finnish lands that an enraged Russia might grab.
Moscow has already indicated that, should Sweden and Finland join NATO, Russia will introduce new nuclear weapons into the Baltic region.
Why is it wise for us to formally agree, in perpetuity, as NATO is a permanent alliance, to go to war with Russia, for Finland?
Given the war in Ukraine and concomitant crisis in Eastern Europe, it is understandable why Stockholm and Helsinki would seek greater security beneath the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
But why would we voluntarily agree to give Sweden and Finland these war guarantees? Why would we commit to go to war with Putin’s Russia, a war that could, and likely would, escalate to the use of tactical nuclear weapons, especially if Russia were losing?
Finland was neutral during the Cold War. Sweden has been neutral since the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century.
How did we suffer from their neutrality?
In Helsinki and Stockholm, the benefit of a U.S.-NATO commitment to go to war for Finland or Sweden is understandable.
But how does it benefit our country, the USA, to be obligated to go to war with a nation that commands the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons — over some quarrel in the Baltic Sea or Gulf of Finland that does not affect us?
Asked for his view on Sweden and Finland’s campaign to join NATO, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had a note of warning:
“We have repeatedly said that the (NATO) alliance remains a tool geared towards confrontation and its further expansion will not bring stability to the European continent.”
Should Putin’s Russia clash with Finland or Sweden today, the U.S. is free to respond, or not to respond, as it sees fit, depending on our own assessment of risks and rewards.
Why not keep it that way? Why surrender our freedom of action in some future collision involving our main adversary?
History holds lessons for us here.
In March 1939, six months after Munich, when Czechoslovakia disintegrated into its ethnic components, Britain issued an unsolicited war guarantee to Poland, then negotiating with Germany over the port city of Danzig taken from Germany by the victorious Allies after World War I.
When Germany, on Sept. 1, 1939, invaded Poland, Britain was obligated to declare war on Germany over a matter that was not a vital interest of Great Britain or its worldwide empire.
Lest we forget, it was the Bucharest Declaration of 2008, opening the door to membership in NATO for Ukraine and Georgia, that led to the recent crises in Eastern Europe and the current war.
The Russia-Georgia War of August 2008, the U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014, and Putin’s annexation of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine all proceeded from NATO’s decision in 2008 to open the door to membership for Georgia and Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine today is partly due to the U.S. and Ukraine’s refusal to rule out NATO membership for Kyiv.
No NATO nation today has a border with Russia nearly as long as that of Finland. If Finland joins NATO, will we put U.S. boots on the ground along that 830-mile border with Russia? Will U.S. warplanes fly in and out of Finnish airfields and air bases up to the border of Russia?
Collective security is said to be a good idea.
But the core of NATO security is provided by U.S. war guarantees, while most of the collecting is done by our 29 NATO allies, which could become 31 by summer’s end.
Otto von Bismarck predicted that the Great War, when it came, would be ignited by “some damn fool thing in the Balkans.”
And World War I was indeed triggered by the assassination of the Austrian archduke in Sarajevo in June 1914. The Germans came in in part because the kaiser had given Austria a “blank check” for war.
What enabled America to stay out of both world wars for years after they began was our freedom of “entangling alliances” when they began.
But today we not only lead an alliance of 30 nations, but we are adding two more members, one of which has a border of 830 miles with Russia.
How long does our luck last?
Denmark is First EU Country to Scrap All COVID Restrictions
21st Century Wire | January 29, 2022
Later this week, England is scheduled to drop its problematic mask mandate for shops and public transport, along with its highly unpopular vaccine passport regime. Up north, Scotland says it will “relax” so-called ‘work from home guidance,’ and reopen nightclubs, as well as ending venue capacity limits.
While the UK and Ireland gingerly roll-back their highly disruptive COVID restriction policies, other European countries are now leading the way by scrapping the entire ‘pandemic’ regime altogether.
Financial Times reports…
Denmark said it would lift almost all Covid-19 restrictions and stop designating it a “societally critical” disease on Wednesday in the latest sign that western European countries are easing or even eradicating strict measures brought in to combat the Omicron coronavirus variant.
Magnus Heunicke, Denmark’s health minister, wrote to parliament on Wednesday saying that he would remove all Covid-19 restrictions on February 1, except for testing on arrival from abroad. Just as the Danish government did in September, when it lifted all restrictions, it will also stop calling Covid-19 a “societally critical disease”, meaning that it will no longer have the legal basis to introduce wide-ranging curbs.
“Tonight we can begin to lower our shoulders and find our smiles again,” said Mette Frederiksen, Danish prime minister, on Wednesday evening. “The pandemic is still here, but with what we know now, we can dare to believe we are through the critical phase.”
Denmark is the latest European country in recent days to announce it is dropping most or nearly all measures as it follows in the footsteps of the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands…
Meanwhile, mainstream media outlets like Politico report this latest development with the accompanied fear-mongering over the latest “subvariant” – allegedly on the loose:
The announcement comes as a new subvariant of Omicron, BA.2, is gaining a foothold in Denmark and driving infections up, with 46,000 new COVID-19 cases recorded on Wednesday.
“Recent weeks have seen very high infection rates, in fact the highest in the entire pandemic,” Frederiksen said. “Therefore, it may seem strange and paradoxical that we are now ready to let go of the restrictions.”
Some 82 percent of Denmark’s population is fully vaccinated with two doses, of whom 50 percent are boosted with a third dose, according to the Danish Health and Medicines Authority.
However, as the FT points out, with this alleged rise in “cases” (aka PCR positive tests) promoted in the media – there is no corresponding rise in serious illness as a result COVID-19:
Denmark still has one of the highest number of Covid-19 cases per capita in the world, currently more than 10 times its previous peak as Omicron causes tens of thousands of daily infections. But the number of patients in intensive care continues to fall and, even with Omicron, never hit the peaks reached from April 2020 and January 2021.
Elsewhere in Scandinavia, Sweden, Norway and Finland have all announced they will also be easing their restrictions in the coming weeks.
Scientific Journal Advocating Child-Free Life Sparks Fury in Low-Fertility Finland
Sputnik – 09.09.2019
The 13/2019 edition of the magazine Tieteen Kuvalehti, which addressed climate change and numerous ways of minimising the carbon footprint, has struck a chord in Finland.
After listing more conventional ways of reducing one’s carbon footprint, such as abstaining from consuming meat and minimising air and car travel, Tieteen Kuvalehti concluded that the right (and the single best) thing for a climate-aware person to do is to abstain from having children.
The idea that having babies is bad for the environment, complemented by an exed-out image of a baby on the cover, was ill-received in Finland, where the birth rate is currently at a historic low: according to the United Nations report World Population Prospects 2019, the number of children under age five in 2015 was 300 million, compared with 501 million in 1950.
A Centre Party MP called for the magazine to be “hidden” in shops, libraries and kiosks.
“I believe conveying the message that a baby is a source of emissions is going too far. It gives children and youth the impression that they are a burden, and I find this horrible”, Aittakumpu told national broadcaster Yle.
Christian Democrat MP Päivi Räsänen was also outraged by on the cover.
“The message of the cover image is offensive to babies and families with babies … Children that are well cared for and educated will come up with the solutions to future problems, not be the cause of them. I support a counterattack to propaganda of this nature that says ‘All babies are welcome!’”, Päivi Räsänen said, as quoted by Yle. […]
Meanwhile, the number of births in Finland fell for the eighth consecutive year in 2018, as the total fertility rate hit a historic low of 1.41 children per women, Statistics Finland indicated. The last time Finland experienced baby blues of comparable proportions was during the great famine that happened about 150 years ago.
However, this is not the first time scientific papers suggest abstaining from having children for the sake of the planet. A 2017 study from Lund University in Sweden, suggested having fewer children, living car-free, avoiding air travel and eating a plant-based diet, claiming that these measures are more efficient in reducing emissions than commonly promoted strategies like comprehensive recycling or relying on energy-efficient household lightbulbs.
Helsinki University world politics professor Teivo Teivainen stressed that the decision to have fewer children includes many ethical considerations. While underscoring Finland’s responsibility, he stressed that the birthrate of the small nation has almost no significance on the global scale.
Tieteen Kuvalehti is the Finnish version of the Danish periodical Illustreret Videnskab, published by the Swedish media house Bonnier Group, which is run by the Bonnier family and operates in more than a dozen countries. It circulation is about 550,000 copies.
Washington’s Nord Stream 2 Sanctions May Have Boomerang Effect on US Interests – German Media Reports
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 27.08.2019
The US Congress has moved forward with legislation to impose sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project in defiance of criticism from Washington’s allies in Europe, as the joint venture brings together Russia’s Gazprom, Germany’s Uniper and Wintershall, Austria’s OMV, France’s Engie, and Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell.
Possible US sanctions against companies involved in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline could potentially harm US oil and gas projects in the Gulf of Mexico, writes the German business newspaper Handelsblatt.
“From the point of view of Germany, the name of the US proposed sanctions bill, ‘Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act’, is in itself an insolence”, writes the author.
The US is pushing to impose sanctions against Nord Stream 2 despite likely consequences that such restrictions may have.
Thus, European companies involved in laying the pipeline and targeted by Washington’s sanctions play a key role in the global energy market.
For a long time, these companies worked in the Gulf of Mexico as subcontractors of the American corporations Chevron and Exxon Mobil, recalls Handelsblatt.
Therefore, if they are included in the sanctions lists, projects in the Gulf of Mexico will be disrupted, since it is impossible to quickly replace such highly specialised firms.
Overall, the US economy views the proposed sanctions against Nord Stream 2 critically, the author points out. Such restrictions would also be likely to harm US gas exporters, prompting European buyers to reduce LNG imports from the United States and increase supplies from other countries.
Proposed US Sanctions on Nord Stream 2
The Nord Stream 2 project has long drawn opposition from a number of countries, with the United States, which is trying to sell more of its own liquefied natural gas to overseas allies, insisting that the project will make Europe dependent on Moscow – claims that Russia has repeatedly rebuffed.
Moscow has insisted that the pipeline project is strictly commercial, ultimately seeking to boost Europe’s energy security.
Nevertheless, in early August, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a bill on sanctions against companies providing vessels for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project.
The document prohibits entry into the US for anyone involved in the “sale, lease, provision or assistance in providing” ships for laying Russian offshore pipelines at a depth of 30 metres or more, as well as the freezing of their assets in US jurisdiction.
Companies from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Finland, and Sweden may fall under the sanctions.
The project is being implemented by Nord Stream 2 AG, with Gazprom investing half of the funds, and the remainder being contributed by European partners: Germany’s Uniper and Wintershall, Austria’s OMV, France’s Engie, and Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell.
Germany has been strongly behind Nord Stream 2, emphasizing the commercial focus of the project.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she supported the BDI’s (Federation of German Industries) stance that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline for delivering Russian natural gas to Europe is necessary given the German initiative to stop using nuclear and coal energy.
Austria, which is interested in reliable supplies of fuel, and Norway, whose government owns 30 percent of the shares of Kvaerner, one of the gas pipeline construction contractors, also spoke in favor of the project.
Nord Stream 2 Project
The 745-mile-long (1,200 km) Nord Stream 2 twin pipeline is set to run from Russia to Germany through the territorial waters or exclusive economic zones of Denmark, Finland, Germany, Russia, and Sweden to deliver Russian gas to European consumers.
The completed project will double the capacity of the existing Nord Stream pipeline network, allowing a total of up to 110 billion cubic metres of Russian natural gas to be transported to Western Europe via pipelines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
According to a statement made by project operator Nord Stream 2 AG on 26 August, the pipeline is 75 percent complete.
Lavrov Says Alleged Russian Links to GPS Glitches During NATO Drills Fantasy
Sputnik – 12.02.2019
MOSCOW – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday called claims of Russia’s alleged involvement in GPS disruptions during last year’s NATO drills a fantasy, a day after Norway renewed similar allegations concerning signal interference near its border.
“I must say that a matter was not looked into because it is impossible to explore fantasies that are not confirmed by any facts. It’s all along the lines of ‘highly likely,'” Lavrov said at a press conference after meeting with Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini.
In turn, Soini said that Finland had requested information from Russia on what could be causing the GPS disruptions.
“The situation [with GPS failure] last fall caused concern in Finland. And this situation does not in any way contribute to increasing the level of stability in the region. Naturally, the safety of air traffic and security in the broad sense should not be compromised in any circumstances. We expect and believe that there will be no such events in the future. We discussed this issue and asked for information on what these obstacles may be related to,” Soini told reporters after the meeting.
On Monday, the Norwegian Intelligence Service said in its annual report that in repeated incidents since 2017, Russia had blocked GPS signals in Norwegian regions near the border with Russia, adding that these incidents coincided with military drills in Norway.
Between late October and early November, NATO’s Trident Juncture military drills, held in several northern European countries, including Norway and Finland, were overshadowed by several incidents in which pilots reported losing GPS signals.
On November 13, the Norwegian Defense Ministry issued a statement blaming Russia for the disruption of GPS navigation signals. Finland also alleged that Russia could be responsible for jamming the signal. Moscow has denied the allegations, and Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has noted the existing trend of accusing Russia of “various deadly sins,” saying that such accusations were, as a rule, unfounded.
Persecution & intimidation: Fate of Russians in US prisons casts shadow on American justice system
© (top left) Viktor Bout / Reuters / Damir Sagolj; (top right) A placard with an image of Konstantin Yaroshenko / Sputnik;
(bottom left) Maria Butina / Reuters / Alexandria Sheriff’s Office; (bottom right) Family photo of Roman Seleznyov / AFP
RT | December 29, 2018
As Washington continues detentions of Russians across the world the plight of those, who have already fallen into the clutches of the US authorities, raises suspicion about the true colors of the US justice system.
In mid-December, yet another Russian citizen was detained outside of Russia’s borders – this time in Finland – at the request of the United States, marking the latest episode in what the Russian Foreign Ministry decried as a “de-facto hunt” for the Russians on a global scale.
The news about the arrest of a Russian woman in Finland, who was placed in a “male” detention center and reportedly complained of poor conditions, came just days after a long-time Russian prisoner jailed in the US revealed that he was offered various favors, including a Green Card for his family in exchange for accusing the Russian government of corruption.
These developments shed light on how the US justice works, at least when it comes to Russians. RT looks at some of the high-profile cases, involving Russian citizens who have been detained or imprisoned in the US.
1. Viktor Bout
A businessman jailed in the US on accusations of being an international arms dealer, Viktor Bout, is one of the Russians who has spent the longest period of time in a US prison in recent history. He has been in custody for a decade now, after being arrested in 2008 in Thailand during a sting operation. He was convicted in the US in 2012 on a charge of conspiring to kill American citizens, by selling weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and was handed a 25-year sentence.
The businessman himself has denied accusations. As the scandal developed he’s been in the media spotlight. While talking to reporters he spoke about life in the US high-security prison claiming that a maximum-security prison he is in spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on every prisoner from the US budget. Nevertheless, the conditions in the facility leave much to be desired and “nobody ever investigated” why the cost is so high, he said.
Bout was also highly critical of the US justice system by calling it a “cheap farce” and saying that the only reason behind his incarceration was to “intimidate other Russians”. It was also him, who said that the US offered him a deal in exchange for “telling the US authorities about corruption in the Kremlin.”
Still, he remains full of optimism and says that yoga, learning foreign languages and anecdotes keep him in good shape both physically and mentally.
2. Konstantin Yaroshenko
Other Russian citizens faced a much more ghastly fate and Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot arrested in Liberia back in 2010, is one of them. Detained as a result of another US sting operation, Yaroshenko was accused of participating in a plan to smuggle drugs into the US and was handed down a 20-year sentence in 2011, which he has been serving ever since.
Yaroshenko has always insisted that he is completely innocent and that the whole process was part of a scheme by US agents to extract evidence against Bout. He also repeatedly complained about the conditions he was held in. He claimed he had been denied medical assistance despite health problems and was tortured by the prosecutors.
In May 2018, he told his wife by phone that his health problems could be due to deliberate poisoning. He also said he was put in a disciplinary cell for 30 days despite serious health issues. “He said he was tired of the torments and that 30 days in the disciplinary cell would kill him, he would not walk out of it alive,” she told reporters. His lawyer, meanwhile, assumed that it might have been punishment for talking to the Russian media.
Moscow has repeatedly urged Washington to pardon Yaroshenko but the US rejected any appeals.
3. Maria Butina
A pro-gun rights activist, Maria Butina, has become one of the latest Russian citizen jailed in the US in a high-profile case. Living in the US on a student visa, she was arrested in mid-July in the middle of the hunt for “Russian agents” and accused of secretly working for the Russian government as an unregistered lobbyist.
While being far from a dangerous criminal, Moscow said that Butina faced unnecessarily harsh treatment during her pre-trial detention. She was kept in solitary confinement for months, denied medical help and “subjected to a kind of torture,” as the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put it.
While initially pleading not guilty, Butina, who faced up to 15 years in jail, then changed her mind and agreed to strike a deal with prosecutors. Lavrov then said that he had “reasons to believe” the conditions she was kept in were “intended to break her will and make her confess to something she likely didn’t do.”
4. The hunt for ‘Russian hackers’
In recent years, the US also started a real hunt for those it called the ‘Russian hackers.’ About half a dozen Russian programmers were arrested in various corners of the world upon similar US requests and were all accused of various cybercrimes.
Roman Seleznyov, the son of Russian MP Valery Seleznyov, was arrested as he was on holiday in the Maldives in 2014. He was accused of being involved in bank fraud, obtaining information from protected computerized cash registers and aggravated identity theft.
Seleznyov has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. The man was held in prison even before trial despite his lawyer arguing that his client did not represent any danger to society. “This case does not involve an act of terrorism. It does not involve an act of war,” the lawyer said at that time.
Seleznyov was eventually sentenced to 27 and 14 years in two separate cases. Both sentences will run concurrently.
A similar fate befell programmer Pyotr Levashov, accused by US prosecutors of being the mastermind behind a large bot net. He was extradited to the US from Spain in February 2018 and initially pleaded not guilty to all 8 counts against him.
He also said his life would be in danger if Spanish authorities complied with the US extradition request, and afraid that he might face torture in the US “in order to extract Russian secrets.” Just seven months later, he pleaded guilty. His trial is scheduled for September 2019. Until then, he will still stay in prison.
Another Russian programmer, Stanislav Lisov, was extradited to the US from Spain in January 2018 and has been held in the Metropolitan correction center in New York.
The FBI claims that Lisov was the creator and administrator of NeverQuest, a banking trojan that has defrauded thousands of people, and cost the US some $5 million. Lisov denied all accusations and said that he just provided tech support for websites. He also said he was long kept in the dark about the real charges and was asked if he “broke into the Pentagon” or the FBI or the CIA.
His wife told RT before his extradition that she and her husband were “ninety-percent certain that the case is politically motivated.” In October, his lawyer told the Russian Izvestia daily that Lisov, 32, could get a “de-facto life sentence” even though the maximum sentence in his case could not exceed 25 years.
These are just some examples. As many as 54 Russians were held in US prisons in 2017, according to the data provided by the US Federal Bureau of prisons to RT. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has, in turn, condemned the US for “acting on the sly” and simply “abducting” the Russian citizens during their travels abroad.
Although almost all the cases against the Russians in the US do look like simple criminal proceedings, the circumstances surrounding these cases still leave many questions about whether they were solely about the pursuit of justice.
Russia Accused of Disrupting NATO Drills: Just Another Unfounded Allegation
By Andrei AKULOV | Strategic Culture Foundation | 16.11.2018
Finnish Prime Minister (PM) Juha Sipila has accused Russia of interfering with the Global Positioning System (GPS) in Finland’s Lapland region during the Trident Juncture-2018 NATO exercise. NATO fighter jets and surveillance aircraft landed and took off from the airport in Rovaniemi during that training event. In his weekly interview with the national public broadcasting company YLE Radio Suomi, the PM said the electronic interference was “almost certainly deliberate.” He thinks it is quite likely that Russia was behind the episode, which jeopardized civil aviation in addition to other concerns. An experienced pilot himself, Sipila said that the incident would be treated as a breach of Finnish airspace. Finland has launched an investigation into the matter. Foreign Minister Timo Soini has promised to provide a report to parliament about the alleged Russian jamming.
Norwegian authorities joined in to point a finger at Russia. “The jamming in the period between October 16th and November 7th came from Russian forces on Kola,” said Birgitte Frisch, Special Advisor in the Ministry of Defense. Danish aircraft were not affected but Danish Defense Minister Claus Hjord Frederiksen declared that Russia’s denials of involvement were not convincing. According to him, the GPS jamming incidents were another sign of Russia’s “aggressive” behavior toward neighboring countries. Nothing has been proven, but a Finnish investigation was launched after the accusations had already been made public.
No formal protests have been submitted. All the charges have been denied by Russia. It’s worth noting that neither the US Defense Department nor NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg were willing to comment. Is it conceivable that Russia’s alleged activities affected only the aircraft belonging to these two nations, especially since the American military was playing the biggest role in that exercise? Suppose Russia wanted to test its EW systems. How could the jamming exclude US aircraft and ships? All in all, over 30 countries took part in the training event, but only two of them complained. Were the others not subjected to jamming? If the jamming was so powerful, why were there no accidents? Can Finnish and Norwegian officials explain that? The fact that these very simple questions remain unanswered demonstrates how easy it is to hurl accusations without substantiating one’s claims.
Norway insists the interference came from the Kola Peninsula. The Russians’ best “tactical” electronic warfare (EW) systems, such as the Krasukha-4 or the aircraft-based Khibiny, cannot jam satellites. The state-of-the-art Porubschik EW system is carried by the Ilyushin Il-22PP aircraft. If it had been used, it would have been easy for NATO intelligence to have detected it.
It had to be a “strategic” system. Russia has at least two of them. One is the Samarkand, which has not been deployed as yet. The only system that could have jammed the NATO forces during the exercise would have been the Murmansk-BN. But it is positioned in Kaliningrad, not the Kola Peninsula. Besides, it’s really hard to explain why Russia would have done such a thing. Moscow does not stand to gain anything by jamming NATO GPS communications. The interference could have been caused by solar activity, which can be much more powerful than any conceivable EW system. That happens from time to time. But neither the Finnish nor the Norwegian authorities were willing to consider that possibility. And GPS positioning is normally less accurate in the polar regions anyway.
In 2016, Russia put forward a set of proposals to enhance security in Europe in general and in the Baltic Sea in particular, especially during military exercises. NATO refused to discuss them.
Thank God the Royal Norwegian Navy does not blame Russia for sinking its frigate Helge Ingstad, which hit a tanker during the drills. Many of the foreign servicemen who came to Norway to take part in Trident Juncture behaved badly and drank too much. Underdressed Slovenian soldiers nearly froze to death in Norway. Should Russia be blamed for that too? It has become a trend — Russia is blamed for whatever goes wrong, without any evidence to support such accusations. Those who put the blame on Russia for the glitches affecting the NATO military during these drills that were staged for the purpose of scaring Moscow to death need to do the right thing and provide some answers to these questions.
NATO Calls GPS Jamming ‘Dangerous, Disruptive’, Joins Norway in Accusing Russia
Sputnik – November 15, 2018
NATO has decided to throw its weight behind Helsinki’s and Oslo’s claims of GPS disruption during the recent alliance drill in Norway. Meanwhile, unsubstantiated allegations of Russian involvement are gaining momentum in the Nordic countries.
Unfounded accusations by Norway and Finland that Russia was responsible for the recent GPS malfunction experienced during the Trident Juncture drill, the largest in decades, have now been perpetuated by NATO headquarters.
“Norway has determined that Russia was responsible for jamming GPS signals in the Kola Peninsula during exercise Trident Juncture,” NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said. “In view of the civilian usage of GPS, jamming of this sort is dangerous, disruptive and irresponsible.”
Previously, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stressed in a more evasive way that electronic warfare was on the rise, stressing that the alliance “takes all these issues very seriously.” Nevertheless, he specifically refused to pinpoint any particular nation responsible for the disturbance.
The Norwegian short-haul carrier Widerøe admitted to cockpit crews experiencing unusually weak GPS signals (or none at all), but declined to speculate on the reason for their disappearance.
Following claims by the Norwegian Defence Ministry that it had traced the source of jamming in Norway and Finnish Lapland “to a Russian military base on the Kola Peninsula,” Matti Vanhanen, former Finnish prime minister and current chair of the parliament’s foreign committee said that while Norwegian authorities are unlikely to present any proof, there still was “every reason to trust them”, Finnish national broadcaster Yle reported.
Foreign Minister Timo Soini and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto called for a thorough investigation of the incident, while Prime Minister Juha Sipila highlighting Russia, which “has the means to do it,” as the likely culprit. The Finnish Defence Ministry is yet to provide its commentary.
Neither Norway nor Finland recorded any incidents related to alleged GPS jamming. Russia has denied any involvement in the location signal disturbances.
“We know nothing about Russia’s possible involvement in those GPS failures,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Moscow will respond to possible questions related to the alleged jamming of the GPS signals by Russia during the recent NATO exercises in Scandinavia after Helsinki and Oslo use diplomatic channels, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the police in Norway’s northernmost county of Finnmark are now issuing warnings that ‘Russian’ GPS jamming can threaten security and emergency preparedness in Norway. They noted that disturbances of GPS signals in Finnmark have occurred at least three times since last September, and can also interfere with police response to emergency situations. Furthermore, GPS coordinates are often used to determine locations when police are out on the job.
The alleged disturbance occurred amid NATO’s Trident Juncture, two-week military drills involving 50,000 soldiers from 31 countries.
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Neocon Max Boot: Legal and illegal aliens need to enlist in the US army and die for Israel
By Jonas E. Alexis | Veterans Today | October 16, 2107
In 1973 Irving Kristol, the godfather of the Neoconservative movement, made a stunning statement which is still relevant to understanding the Israeli influence in US foreign policy. Kristol said:
“Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30%. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel… Jews don’t like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States…
“American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don’t want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.”
Read the statement again very carefully. A big military budget, said Kristol, is only good for Israel, not America or much of the Western World. In other words, precious American soldiers who go to the Middle East to fight so-called terrorism are just working for Israel, not for America.
So, whenever the Neocons use words such as “democracy” or “freedom,” they are essentially conning decent Americans to support Israel’s perpetual wars. … continue
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- Climate Scientist Who Predicted End Of “Heavy Frost And Snow” Now Refuses Media Inquiries
- Polar Bear Numbers Rising And Health Improving In Areas With The Most Rapid Sea Ice Decline
- One Reason Only For Germany’s Heating Gas Crisis: Its Hardcore-Dumbass Energy Policy
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