The current situation might not have happened if NATO had discussed with Russia its draft treaty on security guarantees in 2021, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told RIA Novosti.
He recalled that “serious discussion” was missing.
“Well, I remember those times, I think that what was missing there is a serious discussion,” Szijjarto said, commenting on whether it was a mistake by NATO countries to abandon the Russian proposal on security guarantees made in December 2021.
The minister noted that he always believes in discussion and dialogue.
“These discussions have not taken place, unfortunately. Well, now we are more than three years after or almost three years after, so it might not make sense what I say now, but I wish those dialogues had taken place. Because if they had taken place, we might not be in a situation where we are right now,” Szijjarto said.
US Vice President Harris’s Insulting Remarks
The way that US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris insulted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is “not the best start” for bilateral relations, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told RIA Novosti.
Earlier this week, Harris during an interview appeared to refer to Orban, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “dictators” and “murderers.”
“Definitely this is not the best start,” Szijjarto said, commenting on whether Harris’s words will have any consequences for the relations between Hungary and the US.
The words of US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris toward Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban are unacceptable and disrespectful, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told RIA Novosti.
Earlier this week, Harris during an interview appeared to refer to Orban, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “dictators” and “murderers.”
“Well first of all that is a scandal. That is a scandal to talk about my Prime Minister this way. This is unacceptable. This is a total disrespect not only towards the Prime Minister but to the Hungarian people,” Szijjarto said.
Hungary has always shown respect for the United States and expects to be treated the same way, the minister said.
“So as we have always shown respect to the American people, we expect the Americans to show respect to the Hungarian nation as well. And such kind of a statement shows a total disrespect which is unacceptable, especially between allies,” Szijjarto said.
October 12, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia | Kamala Harris, NATO, United States |
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A Ukrainian defeat would represent a victory for Europe, French anthropologist Emmanuel Todd has claimed, in an interview with the Italian news outlet Corriere di Bologna published on Tuesday.
According to Todd, who has stressed that he is not an explicit supporter of Moscow, if Russia were to lose in the Ukraine conflict, this would allow “European submission to the Americans to be prolonged for a century.”
The leading intellectual has argued that Europe has effectively delegated the representation of the West to the US and has been paying the consequences ever since. He claims in the interview that nothing can be done to change this fact at the moment due to the ongoing Ukraine conflict, but suggests that its outcome will “decide the fate of Europe.”
“If, as I believe, the US is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free,” Todd told the outlet, noting that it is unlikely that Russia would be compelled to militarily attack Western Europe after establishing itself on the Dnieper River.
“Russia will have neither the means nor the desire to expand once the borders of pre-communist Russia are reconstituted. The Russophobic hysteria of the West, which fantasizes about the desire for Russian expansion in Europe, is simply ridiculous for a serious historian,” he said.
A number of Western leaders have in recent months raised concerns that if Russia were allowed to defeat Ukraine it would eventually set its sights on other European and NATO countries.
Moscow, however, has repeatedly stressed that it has no intention of attacking any other countries once it accomplishes its goals in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed talk of a ‘Russian threat’ as “nonsense” being peddled by Western governments to scare the European population in order to “extract additional expenses” from them.
October 9, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | European Union, NATO, United States |
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Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier said that Western countries had misled Moscow by expanding NATO in Eastern Europe despite previous promises not to do so.
Military expenditure in NATO’s Eastern European member states surged to $70 billion this year, according to Bloomberg.
Poland and Estonia are among the top seven NATO members, in terms of defense spending as a percentage of GDP, this year. Poland is allocating 4.12% of its GDP to defense, while Estonia is dedicating 3.4%, both far exceeding NATO’s target of 2%.
The report comes amid heightened militarization in Eastern Europe, with NATO establishing “multinational battlegroups” in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, in response to a perceived “Russian threat.” Member states have also increased their deployment of ships, planes, and troops to NATO’s eastern flank.
Russia has repeatedly warned NATO against expanding eastwards, with Moscow arguing that it could further escalate tensions in Europe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously accused NATO of making empty promises regarding its 1991 commitment not to expand eastwards. He stressed that there have been “five waves” of expansion since the US administration assured Russia in 1991 that NATO would not expand towards the east.
October 9, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Estonia, NATO, Poland |
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Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said that Hungary will not be affected by the expected stoppage of the transit of Russian natural gas via Ukraine because the country today primarily gets its gas via the TurkStream pipeline.
His comments came at a press conference following the meeting of the Hungarian-Serbian joint economic committee. He further noted that an “extremely brave decision” was made with Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey to build this pipeline, with those involved in the construction and preparation facing serious threats from allies who tried to dissuade them from building it.
“If we hadn’t been brave enough, we would be in huge trouble today. If we hadn’t built the TurkStream gas pipeline, today it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to guarantee the security of Hungary’s natural gas supply,” he added.
Already this year, more than 5.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas has arrived via this route, Szijjártó said.
“We are not interested in and have no influence on what the Russians and Ukrainians get or don’t get in terms of gas transit (…) There are Central European countries for whom this is a problem. In recent years, we in Hungary have invested a lot in gas transportation infrastructure, and of course, we help whoever we can,” he said.
Szijjártó also spoke up on Ukraine’s possible NATO membership, saying that the country’s admission today would drag all members into the ongoing war and trigger the outbreak of WWIII because of the article on collective defense.
“I think that anyone who thinks this matter through with common sense does not want to cause this danger. So, the Hungarian position is clear: There is no possibility of Ukraine joining NATO,” he stated.
Szijjártó added that most NATO foreign ministers are in agreement, which he believes is very unfair to Ukraine, as “they don’t tell them honestly what they think about this issue and what their position is.”
October 9, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Bulgaria, Hungary, NATO, Serbia, Ukraine |
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Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday that he had told Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha that there was no opportunity for Ukraine to join NATO, and that the majority of NATO members speak against Ukraine’s accession to the alliance behind closed doors.
“Last week I told Ukrainian Foreign Minister [Sybiha], who was in Budapest, that I have no idea what he is being told, have no idea, what he is being convinced of, but when we [NATO members] are behind closed doors, the majority share the view I have just expressed,” the minister said at a press conference following the meeting of the Hungarian-Serbian Joint Economic Committee.
On September 30, Sybiha came to Budapest for a working visit. It was the first visit of a Ukrainian foreign minister to Hungary in four and half years.
On October 3, NATO’s new Secretary General Mark Rutte made an unannounced visit to Kiev. During his visit, Rutte said that “Ukraine is closer to NATO than ever before,” and promised to continue working on this until the country becomes a member of the alliance. Rutte added that he looked forward to the day when Ukraine joins NATO, but did not give any exact date.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that NATO’s expansion to include Ukraine would create a direct national security threat to Russia and that Moscow considers the non-aligned status of Ukraine to be extremely important to put an end to the Ukraine conflict.
October 9, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Deception | Mark Rutte, NATO, Ukraine |
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NATO is no longer hiding that it is gearing up for a potential military conflict with Russia, Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko has said, pointing to this year’s Steadfast Defender drills, the bloc’s largest maneuvers since the end of the Cold War.
The US-led military bloc has been expanding eastward for decades, despite assurances given to the Soviet Union in the run-up to German reunification in 1990 that it would not do so. Russia has repeatedly described the expansion toward its borders as a threat to its security.
Speaking to RIA Novosti on Tuesday, Grushko said that “now NATO representatives have stopped hiding that they are preparing for a potential armed clash with Russia.”
“Regional defense plans have been approved, concrete tasks for all of the bloc’s military command structures have been formulated. Possible options for military action against Russia are being continuously worked out,” the diplomat added.
He cited the Steadfast Defender exercise that ran from January through late May, saying that “for the first time, the enemy was not a fictitious state, but Russia.”
While NATO did not specifically name Russia in its announcement of the drills, it called the exercises preparation for a conflict with a “near-peer” adversary. NATO’s main security document identifies Russia as the bloc’s largest threat.
The drills, which were conducted near Russia’s western border, featured some 90,000 troops from all 32 NATO member states.
According to Grushko, “military budgets are being pumped [with money] and [Western] economies are being militarized.”
The deputy foreign minister insisted that “it was not Russia, but the North-Atlantic alliance that took the path of confrontation,” by refusing to engage in dialogue with Moscow. He concluded that NATO bears responsibility for a “major European security crisis.”
On Saturday, Germany’s Die Welt newspaper, citing a confidential NATO planning document, reported that in preparation for a potential conflict with Russia, the military bloc is planning to dramatically increase the number of combat and air defense units.
Over the past few months, several NATO member states have claimed that Russia could be harboring plans to attack the bloc.
Speaking on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in June, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed as “nonsense” and “bulls**t” allegations that Moscow plans to attack NATO.
In September, the Russian leader warned, however, that should Ukraine’s Western backers allow Kiev to use their missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia, “it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the US and European countries, in the conflict in Ukraine.”
October 8, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia | NATO |
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Thousands of French soldiers ready to arrive in Romania for simulated conflict with Russia
The next year will be crucial for the French army, which has undergone a major transformation in recent years to prepare for a possible conflict with Russia, reports Politico.
Next May, thousands of French soldiers will take part in a large-scale military exercise in Romania. The purpose of the exercise is to assess how quickly they can reach NATO’s eastern flank if necessary, which is crucial if Russian President Vladimir Putin were to attack an allied NATO country.
Hungarian news outlet Magyar Nemzet points out that the moves from France show “Paris is preparing for a world war. The pro-war French president has already come up with alarming plans in recent months, which could clearly lead to a war between NATO and Russia. As reported earlier, Emmanuel Macron did not rule out sending troops to Ukraine either.”
Regardless of the potential threats of an open conflict with Russia, NATO seems to be preparing for that possibility.
“We used to play war. Now, there’s a designated enemy, and we train with people with whom we’d actually go to war,” said General Bertrand Toujouse.
Such military exercises “are a strategic signal,” he added
In recent years, French ground forces have undergone a “profound transformation” to prepare for a conflict as intense as the war in Ukraine.
The main challenge is for French forces to reach Romania in such a short time.
“There is still no military Schengen, and we need to decisively improve military mobility in Europe,” said General Pierre-Éric Guillot.
The first troop deployment in Romania in 2022 has been hampered by bureaucratic hurdles, border control procedures and inadequate trains for transporting military equipment. The affected countries have since worked to eliminate these problems.
“We may still be hampered by a few customs measures, but we’ve made a lot of progress in diversifying our routes,” Guillot told reporters.
October 8, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | France, NATO, Russia |
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Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has said that his country would not allow Ukraine to join NATO as long as he stays in power. Admitting Kiev into the US-led military alliance would trigger a new world war, he warned in an interview with the broadcaster STVR on Sunday.
“As long as I am the prime minister of the Slovak Republic, I will lead the legislators, whom I have control over as a party chairman, to never agree to Ukraine’s membership in NATO,” Fico said. “Ukraine’s entry into NATO would serve as a good basis for a third world war.”
Fico, a longtime critic of Western military and financial aid to Ukraine, has insisted that the conflict must be resolved through diplomatic means. He repeatedly warned against further escalation with Moscow.
The accession of new countries must be approved by all of NATO’s 32 existing members, with national parliaments voting in favor or against new candidates.
Kiev formally applied to join NATO in September 2022, citing the ongoing conflict with Russia. While many Western states publicly backed Ukraine’s aspirations, they have refused to provide a concrete roadmap or a timetable for accession. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zenesky acknowledged in July that “we will not be in NATO until the war is over in Ukraine.”
Russia views NATO’s expansion eastward as a security threat and has cited Ukraine’s cooperation with the alliance as one of the main reasons behind the conflict.
President Vladimir Putin warned last month that using Western-supplied longer-range weapons for strikes deep inside Russia would be tantamount to “direct involvement” of NATO in the fighting.
The West is deliberately fueling the fighting in Ukraine because its ultimate goal is to weaken Russia, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said.
In an interview with Slovak broadcaster STVR on Sunday, Fico expressed concern over the EU’s increasing involvement in the ongoing hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, arguing that the conflict cannot be resolved on the battlefield.
“There is a military conflict in a neighboring country where Slavs are killing each other, and Europe is significantly supporting this killing, which I just don’t understand,” Fico said. He added that the fighting “continues only because it is being strongly supported by the West.”
“The sooner it ends, the better it will be,” he stressed, arguing that the Western efforts to use the conflict to defeat Moscow would fail.
“Everyone thinks that through Ukraine we will bring the Russians to their knees, but this Russophobia does not work. It turns out that this problem cannot be solved militarily,” Fico stated.
Fico, a longtime critic of Western military aid to Kiev, promised to block Ukraine from ever joining NATO. Such a step could lay the groundwork for a potential World War III, he argued.
After winning the parliamentary election last year, Fico’s Smer-SD party has halted the delivery of weapons to Ukraine and has repeatedly called for a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. He pledged to restore trade and political ties with Moscow once the fighting ends, arguing that “the EU needs Russia, and Russia needs the EU.”
Moscow has denounced Western aid to Kiev, insisting that no amount of foreign aid would stop its troops in Ukraine.
October 7, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | NATO, Slovakia, Ukraine |
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NATO is planning to create an extra 49 combat-ready brigades with about 5,000 servicepeople in each that would bring a total number to 131 units, reported a German broadcaster on Saturday, citing the alliance’s unpublished documents.
The number of combat corps should be expanded from six to 15, and division headquarters from 24 to 38 to manage and support the extra brigades, the Minimum Capability Requirements, presented by NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Christopher Cavoli and French Adm. Pierre Vandier, read, as cited by the broadcaster.
The alliance is also planning to boost the capabilities of ground anti-aircraft units five-fold to 1,467, the report said.
The necessity to build up military power is stipulated by the threat that allegedly comes from Russia, the report added.
October 5, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia | NATO |
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Croatian President Zoran Milanovic has refused to contribute any troops to the NATO command for providing military aid to Kiev, arguing that this would draw Zagreb into direct conflict with Moscow.
The former Yugoslav republic has been a member of the US-led bloc since 2009. Its right-wing government has sent weapons and helicopters to Ukraine, over the objections of the president, who is a Social Democrat.
”While I am president and the commander in chief, Croatian soldiers, officers and NCOs will not take part in activities that would draw Croatia into a war,” Milanovic said on Thursday.
Milanovic has refused to contribute any personnel to the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) command, which the bloc established for the purpose of coordinating military aid to Kiev. Zagreb was supposed to send a handful of officers to the 700-strong NSATU staff in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has accused the president of “further isolating Croatia on the international scene and destroying its credibility as a NATO member.”
Meanwhile, NATO has reminded Milanovic that the command was agreed at the July summit in Washington and that it would not involve sending any troops to Ukraine. The US-led bloc has argued that spending hundreds of billions of dollars to arm, train and supply Kiev’s war effort doesn’t actually make it a party to the conflict with Russia.
“Whether it’s one soldier or a hundred, wherever they are, this would be a direct command support to a warring party that is not a NATO member, which is out of bounds for Croatian national interests,” Milanovic replied on Thursday that “Croatia has an obligation to help allies, which is what we’ve been doing. Everything else is getting involved in a war, which I will not allow.”
He reminded the bloc that Zagreb has demonstrated its commitment by nearly doubling the number of Croatian troops in the NATO border force, from 300 to 520.
“I answer solely to the people of Croatia, not Washington and Brussels,” Milanovic said.
Under the Croatian constitution, Milanovic has the right to bar the deployment of troops abroad. The cabinet could override the president with a two-thirds vote in the parliament, but the ruling coalition is backed by only 78 out of 151 lawmakers.
Milanovic has long criticized the NATO policy of arming Ukraine to fight against Russia. He has also slammed the EU’s treatment of member states like Poland and Hungary, and accused Brussels of treating Croatia like a “retarded” child.
October 5, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Croatia, NATO, Russia, Ukraine |
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By Drago Bosnic | October 4, 2024
In the last two and a half years, the Neo-Nazi junta frontman Volodymyr Zelensky pitched a number of “peace” plans, formulas, platforms and whatnot. Last year, the so-called Crimea Platform was all the rage, with the United States pressuring numerous countries to join this effectively void initiative. Then came the so-called “peace summits” in Switzerland, with Zelensky insisting everyone should come except the one country that actually matters – Russia. Supported by the US/EU/NATO, he kept pushing until many countries started signaling that such events are pointless and a waste of everyone’s time. By mid-July, the Kiev regime realized it would lose even the formal “support” that Washington DC and Brussels gathered through “diplomacy” (i.e. blackmail, coercion and arm-twisting). As the battlefield situation kept deteriorating, Zelensky suddenly became “open to the idea” of Russia attending the next “peace summit”.
However, the Kremlin was on the verge of laughing in the face of those who suggested this, refusing to take part in the political West’s ludicrous games. The “peace plan” that was offered to Moscow effectively boiled down to capitulation at a time when its forces were already making steady gains across the frontline, but particularly in the Donbass, by far the most heavily contested region in the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. Thus, in order to shift attention away from its collapsing defenses, the Neo-Nazi junta resorted to the most daring PR stunt yet – the Kursk oblast (region) incursion. Expectedly, this also turned out to be a disaster, with the political West itself frustrated by the way the Kiev regime forces were wasting precious resources while the defenses in the Donbass failed to stop the Russian advance. Zelensky’s PR team was now essentially out of new phrases/tropes and realized there won’t be any “peace summits” with Russia.
That was when the Neo-Nazi junta finally decided to recycle the old one – “winning the war”. All of a sudden, the word “peace” was replaced and now we got a “victory plan” once again. Obviously, such “grand schemes” require more money, so Zelensky traveled to the US and spent around a week there in late September, formally pitching the latest “victory plan” to the troubled Biden administration. Many pro-Trump Americans were frustrated by this and even argued that Zelensky was engaged in election meddling, as he visited Pennsylvania, the top swing state. On September 26, the White House hosted Zelensky, where he and Biden happily announced that the Kiev regime would immediately get $400 million, while the US pledged another $8 billion in so-called “aid”. Apparently, Zelensky was frustrated as Washington DC refused to allow the use of NATO-sourced long-range weapons, so he was given all those billions to “lighten up”.
The Neo-Nazi junta frontman officially presented his “victory plan” to the troubled Biden administration, prompting the Trump campaign to call Zelensky “the greatest salesman on Earth“. Obviously, anyone familiar with the way this works knows that the so-called “Ukraine aid” is just another way to get more taxpayer’s dollars back into the US and straight into the coffers of the DNC and Biden crime family. The latest revelations about this scheme show that the warmongering oligarchy in Washington DC initiated the Ukrainian crisis over a decade ago precisely for this reason. However, at least part of these promised funds will surely end in Ukraine, where they’ll be used to bribe numerous Kiev regime officials, but also prolong the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. The unfortunate populace of the NATO-occupied country is paying the price, while the rest of us get to live in fear of uncontrollable thermonuclear escalation.
This still leaves the obvious question – what is this “victory plan” about? It wouldn’t be the first time that the Neo-Nazi junta is claiming that it can “win”, but it “just needs this one game changer”. So far, only nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers haven’t been delivered to its forces. However, nothing worked, so how would this new “plan” turn the tide? Russian offensive capabilities only keep growing, with a deadly combination of artillery dominance and air superiority aided by unrivaled long-range strike systems. Not even NATO itself can match that, let alone the battered Kiev regime forces. The latest assessments only confirmed previous findings about their atrocious casualty ratio, which is why the Russian military is advancing much faster across the frontlines. The Neo-Nazi junta simply doesn’t have the manpower and equipment to prevent this, forcing it to continuously pull back to new defensive positions.
Thus, Zelensky’s “victory plan” effectively boils down to an over the top wishlist counting on a Russia-NATO escalation. In simpler terms, the political West needs to go to war with Moscow to prevent the Kiev regime’s complete defeat. Unsurprisingly, many in Washington DC aren’t really happy about this, as going to war with nuclear-armed Russia would mean the end of America itself, particularly as Moscow has an advantage in terms of both quality and quantity. Its strategic arsenal is second to none and the Pentagon is surely aware of this.
Zelensky’s “victory plan” is yet to be publicly revealed, but senior US officials who have seen it say there’s nothing original or innovative in it. On September 25, The Wall Street Journal quoted one who said that he’s “unimpressed”, as “there’s not much new there”. It can only be concluded that the Neo-Nazi junta and its overlords simply want to keep the NATO-orchestrated war going for as long as possible.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
October 4, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Militarism | NATO, Ukraine, United States |
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Just a fews days ago, on October 1, Mark Rutte was sworn in as NATO’s new General Secretary. He is the fourth Dutch office holder, after Dirk Stikker (1961-1964), Joseph Luns (1971-1984) and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (2004-2009).
So, who is Mark Rutte? For one, he is the longest-serving Prime Minister of the Netherlands in the 209-year history of the Kingdom, with more than fourteen years in office. In 2006, in a kind of inner-party coup, he was catapulted to the presidency of the VVD, the Liberal (actually meaning Conservative) party. Before that, from 1988 to 1991, he was leader of the party’s youth branch, in which capacity he gained notoriety for advocating the legalization both of sex with 12-year olds and of commercial surrogate motherhood.
No doubt a major reason for Rutte’s longevity as Prime Minister is his impressive imperviousness to any and all form of criticism. It would seem as if any kind of criticism, anger, indignation and rage of his opponents runs off him like water off a duck’s back. It is precisely this quality that has earned him the nickname of “Teflon Mark.” If pressured by an opponent to remember something he did or said, he is wont to answer: “On that particular issue, I have no active memory.” Truly an expression that deserves to be enshrined alongside Margaret Thatcher’s definition of lying as “being economical with the truth.”
Surprisingly little is known about Rutte’s earlier years and family background. His family has partly Indonesian roots (from when Indonesia was a Dutch colony, until 1945). There are also indications he is part Jewish. Moreover, his maternal grandfather seems to have had some murky relations with Dutch royalty.
At 57 years, NATO’s new boss is not married and does not have a family, but there is no scarcity of rumors about his affective relationships and sexual preference. More details are known even about the secretive Dutch royal family. We only have the names of some of his intimate friends, one of whom is Jort Kelder, a conservative Dutch journalist and TV personality. In Russia, Rutte is being referred to as Gomosec, a play on words: Gensec, the abbreviation of General Secretary, dates from Soviet times, whereas gomosec is a Russian term for “gay,” which many believe Rutte is.
Of course, those who have appointed Rutte must be in the know about all the details of his private life, while it seems the almost one billion inhabitants of the thirty-two NATO member states will forever remain in the dark about Rutte’s fascinating and intriguing personality. Given the curtain of secrecy around Rutte, it is to be hoped that most won’t give a hoot. However, don’t you think it is strange that all those one billion Natostan inhabitants, who will continue footing all NATO bills, including Teflon Mark’s 300,000-euro salary, should have no idea whatsoever as to who it really is that is ordering all that killing in their name?
Only one person, Rutte’s former legal adviser Karim Aachboun, has tried to prevent him from becoming Gensec. Accusing him of being responsible for the disappearance of thousands of children during the “childcare benefits scandal,” the accuser had to see the lawsuit eventually halted by a Belgian judge, giving Rutte momentary relief.
With only such sketchy details on Rutte, what do we know about NATO? As a matter of fact, what is NATO?
In the first place, it is an organization created in 1949 by the United States, in the words of its first Gensec Lord Ismay, “to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.” Ostensibly a defensive alliance against a Soviet (Russian) assault on Western Europe which, the public was told could happen any moment, never materialized. However, NATO was not dissolved when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. In hindsight, it turned out that the Soviets never intended to invade Western Europe and that the entire overheated Cold-War fear mongering was all pure nonsense. Yet the old, time-proven justification for NATO’s existence was dusted off and presented to the public once again: the evil Russians can invade anytime and we must be prepared for that eventuality.
NATO remained intact and was even expanded substantially, eventually doubling its membership. With the Iron Curtain drawn away, the Soviet Union dissolved and Russia struggling to adapt to radically altered circumstances, NATO could finally engage in some military action. Boy, was it eager! In 1995 (having secured support from the UN Security Council), it intervened in the Yugoslav civil war, ensuring Bosnia-Hercegovina’s formal independence as a NATO and US protectorate.
In 1999, NATO completely tore off its mask as it acted alone against Serbia, showing its true bloodthirsty nature in the massacre of civilians and the wholesale destruction of Serbian infrastructure. Needless to say, all of this was done through aerial bombardments. Now seemingly on a spree, in 2001, NATO jumped to the occasion of playing a role in the US-led neocolonial enterprise in Afghanistan, enthusiastically massacring thousands of civilians (2001-2014). In the meantime, NATO destroyed Libya, killing at least 60,000 civilians. Since the US-led coup in the Ukraine in 2014, NATO has also been intimately involved in readying that unfortunate country for sacrifice on the altar of Anglo-Saxon Russophobia.
So what is NATO? The answer would be: an international terrorist organization, specializing in the mass killing of civilians and the destruction of critical infrastructure, yet unable to face a peer opponent such as the Russian armed forces. Indeed, killing and setting up others to be killed is what NATO does best. Including the Ukrainians killed since Russia started its Special Military Operation in 2022 (about one million), plus the thousands of Yugoslavs, Afghans and Libyans, as well as the 16,000 civilians killed by the Ukrainians under NATO orders in Donetsk and Lugansk between 2014 and 2022, the tally stands at some 1.25 million. Quite impressive indeed!
With NATO deeply involved in the Ukraine, where it has been sustaining a series of painful and rather embarrassing personnel losses due to Russian precision bombings, Gensec Rutte has his work cut out for him. So far he seems equal to the task, emitting proper belligerent sounds. As a matter of fact, he began to do so even before he was Gensec and when he was still Prime Minister of the Netherlands, probably as a kind of application for the job. Ukraine’s war against Russia, he said, “is also our war.” Since he never bothered to check with Parliament, the remark was purely his own.
Apparently Rutte was and still is under the impression that the Ukraine is defending “our values,” which would be in the interest of “our democracy.” By using the possessive pronoun “our,” Rutte may have merely indicated the small clique of politicians and elite figures, not so much the population at large, as most people seem to think. In this respect, Rutte may be right!
What might be the values of the Ukraine? Judging by the actions of its leaders (“government”), those values are definitely not those that the US, the Council of Europe, the EU, or even NATO for that matter, officially subscribe to. As a matter of fact the values of today’s Ukrainian leaders do not seem to differ that much from those embraced by their predecessors who collaborated with the Germans during the Second World War. Judging by NATO’s track record, those Ukrainian values also coincide with the “values” that NATO has been defending, or rather, spreading.
Rendered in the most neutral terms, those values are rather destructive and lethal: they are about killing people (shooting, bombing, starving, jabbing, torturing them) and destroying their living environment.
Of course, Teflon Mark has already shown his full commitment to NATO values: on the very day of his inauguration, he declared that the Ukraine was free to use the weapons it receives from NATO nations to strike targets deep into Russia. In other words, Rutte has given the green light for the mass killing of Russian civilians. Going even further down the path toward the abyss, Rutte once again declared the Ukraine was to join NATO as soon as possible. With this declaration, Rutte once again showed his utter contempt for the Dutch public. In 2016, in a national referendum, a clear majority of the Dutch rejected any strengthening of the ties to the Ukraine through the EU (which is to be considered the non-military department of NATO). In other words, Rutte does not respect “our” values, but only “his” or “theirs”!
During the next few years, NATO will be upholding those lofty values under the direction of Teflon Mark. Mind you, he gained expertise in the field when leading the mass killing of his fellow citizens by means of death jabs during the Great Covid Show. Indeed, it would seem no one is better able than Teflon Mark Rutte to order mass killings and to send gullible NATO and Ukrainian soldiers to a certain death.
October 4, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia | NATO, Ukraine |
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Aletho News 