Eric Zuesse

NATO is the anti-Russia military club of nations, even after the communist Soviet Union and its military club against the U.S., the Warsaw Pact, ended in 1991 — NATO didn’t reciprocate that by ending itself, as it should have done (and would have done if the U.S. President at the time, George Herbert Walker Bush, had had any basic decency; instead, he said in private, “To hell with that; we won, they didn’t!” but he continued telling Gorbachev that NATO wouldn’t move “one inch to the east” — which promise he was planning to violate, and which his successors have been violating). With the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact gone, NATO’s claimed raison d’etre was also gone, but NATO shamelessly continued on, and it even has expanded right up to Russia’s borders (just try to imagine what John Fitzgerald Kennedy would have thought if it hadn’t been Soviet nuclear missiles merely in Cuba in 1962, but all surrounding the U.S. — and that’s the situation today but reversed: today’s Russia is in the situation of 1962’s U.S., but even more so, though NATO has the audacity to accuse Russia of ‘aggression’ for, essentially, defending itself from NATO — from the enemies that are increasingly surrounding it!). (Yes, what America has been doing, really, is that bad.)

On April 6th, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (son of Norway’s Defense Minister) said that NATO must now expand outside Europe and North America:

Millions fleeing the region in a humanitarian crisis of a magnitude not seen since World War Two.Terrorist groups like ISIL taking hold of ungoverned spaces. And spreading violence across the region and beyond. Inciting attacks on our streets. From Brussels to Istanbul, Paris to San Bernardino. These are attacks on our open societies. On the values we share.
So our response must be strong.

Who caused those refugees? The U.S. and other NATO nations did. The American White House had been seeking to overthrow the Russia-friendly leaders, specifically in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine, but also elsewhere. And now, the refugees from those invasions are flooding into Europe. Oblivious to this reality, Stoltenberg continued:

To protect our territory, we must be willing to project stability beyond our borders. If our neighbours are more stable, we are more secure.

There was stability (and peace, and remarkable and remarkably evenly-distributed prosperity) in Libya under Gaddafi, , whom the U.S. and some of its NATO allies killed. There was stability, peace, and moderate prosperity, also in Syria under Assad, whom the U.S. and some of its NATO allies tried to kill. (Gaddafi and Assad were the two non-sectarian national leaders in the Middle East; NATO downed one, and still tries to down the other.) (The U.S. plan to overthrow the secular government of Syria and replace it by a sectarian, specifically fundamentalist Sunni and Saudi-allied government, had actually been drawn up by the CIA in 1957, but couldn’t be carried out until 2011, and Obama has been putting it into practice ever since.) There was stability throughout the Middle East before the U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign enabled the chaotic opposition forces to capture and kill Gaddafi, and before the U.S., Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE, organized the intended overthrow of the secular (non-sectarian) Shiite leader of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, in order to replace him with imported fundamentalist Sunni jihadists, passionate to establish a fundamentalist-Sunni Islamic state there (a terrorist-state, it inevitably would be, but NATO likes that fine, because it produces yet more of a market for its ‘defense’ contractors such as Lockheed Martin — you scratch my back, Lockheed; I’ll scratch yours, NATO).

NATO is the biggest hoax in the history of the world: it’s an extension of a fascist CIA takeover of the formerly democratic nations, of the United States and Europe, by infiltrating fascists into NATO, and its associated propaganda organs: the Atlantic Council, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, USAID, Open Society Foundations, Brookings Institution, American Enterprise Institute, and other Establishment (i.e., Western aristocracy-controlled) organizations.

Specifically regarding Russia, Stoltenberg said:

About Russia, we don’t see any imminent threat against any NATO allied country, including the countries in the Eastern part of the Alliance. But what we see is a more assertive Russia responsible for aggressive actions in Ukraine and willing to use military force. Not only invest in Russian military capabilities but also the willingness to use those capabilities to intimidate neighbours, to change borders in Europe, annex Crimea, destabilizing Eastern Ukraine and having troops in Georgia and Moldova and so on. And this, of course, is of great concern and that’s the reason why we are responding and when I say we I mean the United States and Europe together. Before we didn’t have forces in the Eastern part of the Alliance and now we have forces there on a rotational basis. And we have substantially increased our readiness to redeploy forces if needed. So again I'm concerned but as long as we are able to adapt and because we are able to adapt we are in a way responding to those concerns and making sure that the Baltic countries, all NATO allied countries are safe because NATO is there. … Russia is trying to re-establish a sphere of influence around its borders and that’s why they are behaving as they are in Georgia and Moldova and Ukraine. And that’s not acceptable because they are violating international law, they are not respecting the sovereignty and the territorial integrity — the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of independent Nations, countries in Europe and that’s also the reason why it’s important that we respond. At the same time — and we are responding by the biggest re-enforcement of collected defense since the end of the Cold War. But at the same time I always underline that NATO is not seeking a confrontation with Russia. We will avoid a Cold — new Cold War. [Later he said this:] after the illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea in 2014 NATO decided to suspend all practical cooperation with Russia [but he was saying that there was no ‘new Cold War’, even though he’s surrounding Russia by new enemy countries, which, according to “The Debate on NATO Expansion”, are now to include: Ukraine, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovin, Serbia; and, possibly also Kosovo, which “will probably be admitted to the Alliance as well.”]

When he said, “Russia is trying to re-establish a sphere of influence around its borders and that’s why they are behaving as they are in Georgia and Moldova and Ukraine,” one can think rationally about that by reversing sides and considering what one should think of “America is trying to re-establish a sphere of influence around its borders and that’s why they are behaving as they are in NAFTA (with Mexico and Canada), and behaved as it did during the Cuban Missile Crisis.” To Stoltenberg: for Russia to think like that is “assertive” and “aggressive.”

Here are the facts regarding specifically “Crimea” there — the NATO club’s current excuse for demonizing Russia (and for Obama’s economic sanctions to crush Russia):

Back in February 2014, Obama overthrew (please click on the link if you have any doubt about anything that’s being said here) the democratically elected President of Russia’s neighbor Ukraine, in an extremely bloody coup, which was at least a year in being set-up, and the rationale for this ‘democratic uprising’ was that that actually democratically elected President was corrupt — but no one mentioned that all of Ukraine’s post-Soviet leaders have been corrupt. Obama’s agent Victoria Nuland had instructed the U.S. Ambassador in Ukraine whom to get appointed to take over control of Ukraine as soon as the coup would be completed, and that person did become appointed — and top officials of the EU were shocked to find out that it had been a coup. The “armed militias in ski masks” that Obama referred to in the coup (and in the ‘Anti Terrorist Operation’ afterward), were actually his, not Viktor Yanukovych’s (the President whom Obama overthrew); they were America’s mercenaries, not either Yanukovych’s or Russia’s operatives as he pretends they were. And, now, after the extremely bloody civil war that resulted in Ukraine when the regions that had voted overwhelmingly for the President whom Obama overthrew rejected Obama’s coup-regime and refused to be ruled by it, Ukraine is even more corrupt than it ever was, but, for some mysterious reason, the United States isn’t overthrowing the post-coup government. Obama had gotten what he basically wanted out of his coup: Russia’s ability to pipeline its gas into the EU is now severely hampered by the necessity to establish alternate pipeline-routes. Ukraine is crucial to strangulating Russia, because most of Russia’s gas-pipelines into Europe run through its formerly friendly neighbor, Ukraine, which now is rabidly anti-Russian. So: the coup and ethnic-cleansing and all the rest have been just a part of America’s effort to strangulate Russia; and all of the maimed and dead people are merely collateral damage — no concern of Obama (nor of his NATO).

Furthermore, on 20 February 2014, the peak day of the coup, Crimeans who had been in Kiev demonstrating against overthrowing the President for whom 75% of Crimeans had voted, commissioned a number of buses to take them promptly back to Crimea, especially because the rabidly racist anti-Russian fascists whom the U.S. had hired to carry out the coup terrified them. These buses en-route back to Crimea got stopped by those fascists (from the very same organization that was headed by the man who actually led the coup), who beat the escaping Crimeans bloody and burned at least one of their buses. Some undetermined number of these victims were killed, and many were injured, but there was no official investigation of this event, which became known in Crimea as “The Korsun Massacre” and “The Pogrom of Korsun”; consequently, the Obama-installed coup-regime — which was soon to produce massacres far worse, such as this and this — denies that it happened, but those videos caused Crimeans, who already were against the coup, to be determined to separate from Ukraine and rejoin Russia, of which Crimea had been a part for hundreds of years until the Soviet dictator in 1954 transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine (without even asking the Crimean people). (That’s the same dictator, Nikita Khrushchev, whom U.S. President JFK faced down in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962; but, now, U.S. Presidents treat Khrushchev’s arbitrary action in regard to Crimea as presenting a bigger argument for Crimeans to have no right to determine what their government will be than the Scotts do regarding whether it will continue to be par of the UK, or the Catalans do regarding whether it will continue to be in Spain. We’re not bombing the Catalans nor the Scotts for demanding the right of self-determination — just the residents of Donbass for their rejecting the coup that overthrew the man, Yanukovych, for whom they had voted 90%.)

So: NATO and the U.S. regime know that what they are accusing against Russia are lies. They aren’t deluded, nor merely mistaken on the facts. They created the problems; they know they created the problems; and, now, they blame Russia (and leaders who are friendly to Russia) for having caused the problems by Russia’s ‘aggression’, which is simply Russia’s necessary efforts to defend itself against U.S. aggression.

Then, Stoltenberg said that NATO intends to make more official its alliance with the people who sponsor jihadists throughout the world:

I very much believe that we can expand and enhance our cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council. I visited the United Arab Emirates a couple of weeks ago and and I think that in a way by helping countries in the region to stabilize the region we are of course also making the countries more secure. The whole idea is that if our, NATO’s neighbourhood is more stable they are more secure and we are more secure so it’s not in a way -security is not you get less of if you share it; you get more security if you create security together. So I strongly believe in us working together with the GCC.

The GCC is run by Saudi Arabia, just as NATO is run by the United States. GCC consists not only of the royals of Saudi Arabis (the al-Sauds), but of the royals of Qatar (the al-Thanis), of Kuwait (the al-Sabahs), of UAE (six royal families), of Bahrain (the al-Khalifas), and of Oman (the bin-Saids). All of them are fundamentalist Sunnis. They are the main competitors against Russia, the world’s largest producer of oil and gas. They, like the U.S. and its allied aristocracies in the various European nations, want to cut Russia out of the world’s largest oil-and-gas market, the EU, and to cut in the GCC royals. The GCC royals also are the main funders of jihadist groups that commit terrorist acts in both the U.S. and Europe — all of which groups are likewise fundamentalist Sunnis, just like their royal paymasters are. The top funder of Al Qaeda prior to 9/11 was — and at least as of 2009 it still remained — the Saud princes and their business-partners. But NATO is allied with them. This is how NATO intends “to project stability beyond our borders”: by becoming even tighter-allied with the funders of international jihadist groups.

So: the refugee problem in Europe is caused by the enemies of the European peoples, and these enemies are the aristocracies of the U.S., the EU, and the GCC.

Stoltenberg was arguing possibly to expand NATO to include the GCC.

He was also asked there about Turkey, which — under Tayyip Erdogan’s dictatorship — is the Saud family’s representative in NATO. A Brookings Institution scholar inquired:

“General Breedlove said recently that he felt the Russians were weaponizing the refugee situation with the aim of destabilizing Europe, and I know NATO has sent some sea patrols in the Aegean recently. But my question is why did it take so long for NATO to respond to such a serious security threat to the European continent when Greece and Turkey, both frontline States, are members of NATO?”

Stoltenberg replied:

Turkey participate in the coalition fighting ISIL. Turkey provides military assets but in addition Turkey provides infrastructure, bases, the Incirlik Base and other facilities for the efforts of the coalition fighting ISIL. So without Turkey it would have been much more difficult to, for instance, to conduct many of the air strikes and so on fighting ISIL. Second Turkey is the NATO ally most affected by the influx of refugees. They host more than two million, close to three million perhaps refugees and so Turkey is heavily affected by the crisis in Iraq, Syria, ISIL.

Here are the facts on that:

Turkey supplies ISIS. (ISIS is called “ISIL” by the Obama Administration in order to mislead people to think that ISIS wasn’t started by someone who had been enraged by the U.S. invasion and destruction of Iraq in 2003. But ISIS is the usual name, and the second-most common name for it is Daesh, which is the term that the Saud family prefer to use for it. Daesh is the Arabic version of ISIL: the Sauds are merely deferring, but in Arabic, to U.S. President Obama’s preferred name for the group. However, ISIS, hearing the term Daesh in Arabic, find it insulting, and have “reportedly threatened to ‘cut out the tongues' of anyone it hears using the term’.”)

The GCC, those royal families and their retainers, are the funders of international jihad, not only of ISIS, but of Al Qaeda, etc. However, almost all the money that comes into Al Qaeda is from the Sauds.

When asked specifically about Libya, Stoltenberg said:

One issue we have discussed and also discussed during my visit here to Washington this week and also with Secretary Ash Carter was the possibility of NATO providing AWACS support, our surveillance plane. And that is on the table now and it’s going to be addressed in NATO and then we will be able to provide you with a more precise answer but AWACS support in one way or another is now an issue which is discussed in the Alliance.

He put that forward as being part of a necessary response, by NATO, to the infestation of Libya by “ISIL.” He made no mention of the fact that neither ISIS nor any other jihadist groups were allowed in Libya by Gaddafi, nor present there — that the military campaign there by the U.S., France, and Britain, had enabled the ISIS-infestation of Libya, because what the U.S. and its allies had done had turned it into a failed state.

NATO’s chief propaganda-arm, the Atlantic Council, put it this way about that part of his presentation (where Stoltenberg was talking about the need to bring about closer ties with the GCC):

“Laying the ground for a potential NATO role in Libya — where ISIS has put down roots in a dysfunctional environment that has until recently seen the country divided between two rival governments — Stoltenberg said Libya will need all the help it can get and that the Alliance is ready to step up.” In other words, NATO’s propaganda-arm said: NATO needs to assist the West’s governments to finish the job of taking control over Libya.

That’s a perfect example of: bomb a formerly Russia-friendly country into a failed state; then claim that because it’s a failed state, we’ve now got to take it over — for the benefit of U.S.-dominated international oil companies and the international corporations of aristocrats in countries that are allied with America’s aristocracy. (As regards the publics in any nations, their interests don’t count, according to the people who do count.)

Of course, it makes sense, then, that the GCC royals will now be NATO’s allies in this grand campaign to ‘protect the Western World’.

The enemies of the European peoples are those royal families, and their own and America’s aristocracies. These are the authentic enemies not only of Europeans, but of the American people, too.

It’s not really country-against-country, such as the powers-that-be pretend; it’s the aristocracy against the public, everywhere. Sectarianism, jihadists, bigotries of all types, are among the main means by which aristocracies become enabled to control the public and turn them into cheap cannon-fodder to achieve their conquests. It’s an ancient technique, and commonly called “Divide and rule.” One public then hates another public. Enslaving the public mentally, by such lies and myths, is the model that every aristocracy has found to be most fruitful, the cheapest way for conquests to be achieved. The cannons might not be cheap (the aristocracy sell those to the taxpayers, the publics, of every country), but the fodder are: the public are a real bargain — they don’t just pay for the weapons, they use them, against some other public.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity