Hillary Clinton is concerned that defence cuts in the UK will jeopardise our ability to carry out our NATO obligations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/14/hillary-clinton-uk-defence-cuts
Now NATO was founded to defend the North Atlantic region against advances by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies. The danger of armed invasion by Russia is now minimal, and it is all of 14 years since I had the pleasure of organising a deliciously extravagant, indeed decadent, British Embassy ball in the grand military building in Warsaw where the Pact was signed – an episode I have just been writing up for my next volume of memoirs, Romance Without Chopin.
If Russia wished to take over Europe now, they would just need to turn off the gas supply in winter. But the Russian elite have discovered much easier ways to lead a fantasy lifestyle.
So, with no threat to the North Atlantic, NATO is occupying Afghanistan and making contingency plans to invade Somalia and Yemen. If you take the view that organisations acquire self-interest and behave to maximise it, this makes sense as NATO will provoke more Islamic militancy by occupying Muslim lands, and NATO needs to posit an enemy to continue to exist.
The Secretary General of NATO is the really horrible Anders Fogh Rasmussen. As PM of Denmark he did a Tony Blair and knowingly lied to parliament over the content of intelligence reports on Iraqi WMD. He actively pursued the jailing of Major Frank Grevil for leaking that he had lied. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Grevil
The fact that a reptile like Rasmussen is the Secretary General is itself a sign that something is rotten about NATO.
The government claims we cannot even afford any substantial public funding for the university tuition of our young people. For Hillary Clinton to opine that we need to spend still more on obscene weapons of destruction to support US invasions abroad – and the inextricably linked UK and US arms manufacturers – is pretty sick. Fascinating as well to see New Labour join in and attack the government from the right again.
Totally agree Craig – spot on.
Craig’s proficiency with a hammer hits the nail on the head. Glad he is back.
and about Wikileaks from medialens –
WikiLeaks says funding has been blocked after government blacklisting
Posted by David Sketchley on October 15, 2010, 8:35 am
Might explain why their website has been down for a couple of weeks…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/14/wikileaks-says-funding-is-blocked
Have to agree, NATO has been abused and has lost its aims and objectives after the wall fell in 1989.
From the bombing of Kosovo to todays speculative plans for taking military control in Africa, NATO is causing more problems than it can deal with.
Afghanistan should theoretically be NATO’s last straw, unless all lessons are discarded and ignored.
Great to see you back Craig and good news that you are writing a new volume of memoirs.
As an aside – can I suggest you publish in Kindle format as I for one would be glad to purchase in that way. This would get around your previous difficulties of getting the physical book out there.
“Anyone watching the leaked cockpit video of an Apache helicopter gunning down cameramen and children in Baghdad will not forget the pilot’s reaction: “Nice.” Having witnessed the brutalising effects of war, I felt like cheering when this was exposed and I read that it was viewed 4.8 million times in one week. This is the new “space” for a truth-telling we need urgently, as great power promotes its “perpetual war” and strives for what it calls “information dominance”.
I have got to know Julian Assange, and what strikes me most about him is the unabashed morality he invests in WikiLeaks. It is unusual to hear the words: “The goal is justice, the method is transparency.” He reminds me of one of our compatriots, Wilfred Burchett, the courageous reporter who incurred the wrath of the powerful by exposing the “atomic plague” of the Hiroshima bomb. Like Burchett, Assange has made some serious enemies for blowing such a loud whistle; the Pentagon has already threatened to “terminally marginalise” WikiLeaks. And this is his great risk and his honour.”
John Pilger
http://www.newstatesman.com/digital/2010/09/pilger-wikileaks-assange
Why ‘without Chopin’ – there’s never any need to go without. Back on topic, though – aircraft carriers; fine, groovy – no probs there – Britsh jobs up in your old stomping ground and boys need toys. Staying in Afghanistan & replacing trident – outrageous.
Institutional mission creep seems to be the vogue with the EU going for humungous budget increases when everyone’s skint, ACPO talking utter crap, the UN want new powers to castigate environmental crimes (I shit you not) and a co-alition which is so interested in naval gazing and sucking each other off that any attempt, you know, to fix stuff is never gonna get off the fag packet.
Fortunately i’ve become comatose to everything now so it just dribbles through me like neutrinos but, FFS, kiddies getting shafted on Uni fees is just sickening. How many kids are gonna do English Lit or Classics or Medievel History or History for that matter. 20 years time we’re just gonna have kids doing shit because they think it’ll help in their quest to work for WarCorp or SrewUrUs.
We used to take the piss out of people doing accountancy – waste of 3 months let alone 3 years but in a few years, 18 year olds doing that!! Doesn’t bear thinking about, really.
Weirdly enough,in three years in Poland I heard virtually no Chopin – despite being a very regular concertgoer. Bloody Szymanowski everywhere.
Mam dosyc Szymanowskiego. Essential phrase for your social life in Poland.
“Mam dosyc Szymanowskiego”
“My mother sleeps through it” ?
It’s an education, here!
Whatever happened to the peace dividend that we all expected at the end of the cold war? You know – reduced military expenditures and a tax break, an end to totalitarian measures such as the official secrets act, “D” notices and unofficial press censorship, and most of all retirement for our spooks.
The economy is a war economy, and to prove it:-
A. Check the budget for armaments over the past ten years.
B. Co-relate the arms manufacturers to government subsidies of taxpayers money to the military-industrial arena – and draw lines linking the personalities in the arms manufacturing industry to receipts of those sums.
C. Compare A and B above with the provision for social (i.e. inclusive of housing, education and health care) and welfare needs for the general populace over the past 10 years – then contrast that with where on a proportinate basis military relative to social spending has gone this year.
Unliess the people stand up – it will only continue and get worse.
CND was a good start, but that was infiltrated by the intelligence services and its effectiveness neutralised.
Cameron falls into line as Clinton and Petraeus threaten to break his balls. The phone lines between No 10 and Brussels have been busy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1321023/Cameron-steps-brass-threaten-quit-defence-axe.html?ITO=1490
Courtenay Barnett, Roderick Russell, that’s spot-on. Exactly.
NATO is a sham organisation which lost its purpose with the collapse of the Soviet Union..but the hardest thing to do is to close down redundant organisations. US invocation of Article 5 (ie.response)over Sept.11 2001 kept NATO ‘alive’. Now it serves as a US dominated puppet with Mrs. Clinton and Fogh(the dopey Dane) endlessly repeating cold war rhetoric. Why can’t Europe develop a security/defense identity of its own and act independently in its own interest?