The Guardian: Nato is a threat to Europe and must be disbanded

[Pekka]

Haa I TOLD EVERYONE SO!

I knew this would come. I KNEW IT! Made several arguments about this a looong time ago and saw it as the grand plan, and it's starting to be executed soon.

Of course NATO is not a threat to EUrope. That's just silly. A big part of NATO IS European. This is anti-US babblings and a pipe dream. But it's a pipe dream that can become reality, I mean I think the plan is realistic. But is it a good thing, that I don't think it is.

I told earlier a long time ago time and again, that the EU wants to have a nice military alliance going on. Nothing wrong in that, in fact it is necessary. But calling NATO obsolete right after the building of this military .. the discrediting of NATO and calling it a threat, which it isn't to Europe, is part of plan. I thought they'd be more descreet about it though. As in vetoing everything in NATO, so the alliance wouldn't work really well. This way, the EU has the ONLY working bigger alliance. US would remain the biggest military force of course, but the only real alliance would be the EU, as NATO would become crippled by vetoing. THe next step is to get US out of EUrope, because EU is able to handle the region. And that's when EU has the only working real alliance, thus lifting it's importance into a new level and more shoulder to shoulder with the US..

People, you can deny this all you want, but I predicted this plan a long time ago, and it's happening right now. First you deny, then you laugh, and then you will attack me, but the fact remains.

US forces getting out of Europe (no need for them to be in here)
EU getting new miltiary
EU scrambling NATO
NATO becoming crippled
EU having the only real alliance
Basically I don't see the need for crippling NATO. There's just no need.

[MikeH]

Well, it's an opinion piece so you shouldn't treat it as a factual account. I think a lot of Europeans do think like that.

Personally (and I speak as an evil left wing guardian reader) I think that as we (US and UK) have ****ed the country up we have to stay until we've fixed it.

[Muad'Dib]

because EU is able to handle the region

Yeah right, like they handled the Balkans.

[Ned]

MikeH, the quoted piece seems to suggest that the Guardian gets its "facts" about what is going on in Iraq from the always reliable al Jazeera.

We had the same sort of dribble during Vietnam. The leftist papers said things like "we were bombing the people Vietnam." They were quick to point out that the government of South Vietnam was "corrupt," had no support among the people and was no more than a puppet. The overall impression left anyone getting their information solely from such propaganda that the US was laying waste the countryside in the manner of Ghenghis Kahn, just as Kerry said, and that were just killing people by the millions for no purpose whatsoever.

[Harovan]

I think to call NATO a threat is severely over the top (to find a nice word for bull****), but other than that, the article sounds about right. The NATO in a nutshell is Europe buying security in exchange for obedience. Now Europe does not need the security anymore. Even if we did not build up our own forces, nobody would likely attack us anytime soon. And in fact, we do build up our forces and reform them from cold war monsters to modern armies. So why should we pay the price of further being Americas vassals? Even more since a lot of the US forces aren't even here to provide the security they claim to give us, but abroad trying to pacify Americas newly obtained colony.

Pekka, you are a bit exaggerating. The article does not demand to break up with America. It ends "We can and, for the most part, should be America's friends. Allies, no longer." I think, the step from obedient vassals to partners with equal rights was long overdue.

[MikeH]

That's a comment piece, it's not intended and shouldn't be read as a factual story. As are most of the guardian pieces that get posted here. They do sometimes show other viewpoints as part of their commentary. They had a Republican blogging as part of their US election coverage.

I'd be interested to know what you think of their news coverage. For instance here's their news story about the current Falluja offensive:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1347650,00.html

The South Vietnamese government was corrupt and you were bombing the people of Vietnam, so despite you not liking the inference they chose to make with them those were both factually correct reports?

Do you think that as a principle news shouldn't be reported if people of political persuasions you don't agree with could use it to support their positions or interpret the actions of a government in a negative way?

News sources and political groups of all types 'interpret' the way they report the news in the way that shows their own ideas most positively.

[Arrian]

If Europe wants to go their own way, so be it. Fine by me. Perhaps dealing with a more (militarily) independent Europe will have some impact on U.S. foreign policy decisions. Perhaps not. Either way, I'm fine with it.

However, know thy source. The Guardian is a left-wing anti-American rag. I say this as an American who does *not* see anti-Americanism everywhere. It's just a simple fact that the Guardian is in the business of selling newspapers and they've found a niche. Like Fox has (a scarily large niche, at that). The Guardian will rail against the USA no matter what we do - with the possible exception of imploding into nothingness.

-Arrian

[Pekka]

Sir Ralph, of course it doesnt' demand it. When EU military gets set up and is proper, NATO becomes obsolete by default, as Euros can veto inside NATO, where as the US can't veto inside EU. It's just a non-violent way and passive aggressive method to get rid of NATO all together and form the only alliance.

Muad'Dib,

If you didn't notice, I was talking about a situation where EU military is already set and ready. Remains to be seen is such conflict would happen, what EU military would actually do. European countries have more than enough, and certainly had more than enough power they could have subjected into the Balkans. The difference is, they didn't want to.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DanS
The main reason why NATO/US is still welcome in most places is that it saves European countries a lot of money. Having somebody else foot the bill for a part of your defense is a great deal that's worth a lot of humble pie.

Europe would have to increase spending substantially to have a viable integrated EU force. Europe might have to increase spending somewhat in any event, as the US draws down its forces.

These are the terms of the debate for pretty much everything revolving about European defense / diplomacy / Europe as a new bloc.

One of the reasons why European leaders were divided on the Iraqi war, was because some (especially Aznar) don't wish to see Europe as a military power at all. Aznar is very content of the American umbrella, as it saves money for more important matters.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Muad'Dib
Why is it that the US has to constantly clean up Europe's escrement???

Because you need.

[Atahualpa]

Spoiler:

And as always my comments are ignored....

[RGBVideo]

You have to give the Guardian credit for persistance.

Persistance in trying to agitate the whole continent to share their anti-American views just because it's trendy, and twisting the truth to fit these views, yes.

It's called propaganda. Pity, 5 years ago Guardian was a decent magazine, now it has sunk to levels like this.

So the countries that joined NATO were not afraid of the USSR, while the countries that did not were afraid of the USSR. Why would countries that were not afraid join, while countries that were afraid would not? Is that not illogical.

Afraid of USSR for different reasons. The process is called "Finlandization". You may want to google it up.

Anyway why is NATO important now?

Actually, the armies of most European countries are mainly overkill now that Russia isn't a threat. Europe doesn't need those 140,000 soldiers to "defend" itself against non-existent foes

Very naive POV's. It's sad to see how young people take friendly attitude from overseas granted. Having a strong defence is the best guarantee for peace.

What do you think of this analysis?

Starts out fine, but the whole last half is wasted on useless metaphor. Hard to comment on anything.

Wrt to Finland, they actually did insist they did not have an alliance with Germany, but were merely "co-belligerents" against the SU. Now, this did not do alot of difference in practice, but anyway.

The whole "co-belligerent" thing is BS historical revisionism.

Horror vacui. Both nature and humans abhor a vacuum. The trick is going to be managing the next 50 years as the Soviet system is replaced without blowing the world up. It would be a big bonus if that power and the US could live more peacefully.

I really believed in that whole NWO thing which George Bush introduced when Gulf War started. Too bad that his pothead sonny ****ed it all up. It may be very hard to return to policies of the past even once his 2nd term is up.

I dont think so. Its a Cold War relic. European Defence must be build around EU

Laurentius, you have an ok core point in this thread. US shouldn't be able to blackmail EU countries via NATO every time it feels the itch to "conduct a pre-emptive strike" to satisfy it's own, selfish intentions, therefore EU should create it's own, separate defence force which would have only one function: to defend EU borders (not interests of oil corp's and corruption, like in Iraq). I can understand that.

However, shouldn't we FIRST get our own defence in shape before starting to demand the withdrawal of US troops and the destruction of NATO? As we've seen, EU bureucrat's are very efficient in holding meetings, making symbolic decisions (Rocco Buttiglione) and drinking their cafe latte's, but when it comes to actually creating something like even agreeing to create an unified defence force with common goals, years have passed without anything has been done.

The primary function of NATO now is to maintain an established institutional link between both sides of the Atlantic. Actually, NATO is the only substantial and meaningful institutional link between them.

NATO saved our asses in Kosovo just a few years ago.

NATO attacked Yugoslavia in 1999, thus violated not only its own charter, its so-called defensive nature, but UN charter as well. Now NATO surrounds Russia with its bases and considering that Russia always was the main (if not the only) enemy for NATO, Russians have pretty good reasons to be concerned.

UN was ignored because the only country which opposed the intervention to stop Milosevic was Russia. You have to keep in mind that Yeltsin was the president back then, the whole country was run by mafia interests and corruption. Now when Russia has a democratically elected strong leader backed by overwhelming public opinion, I doubt Russia would be just ignored the way it was in '99.

Is that what Europeans actually think about what is going on in Iraq?

In Finland, pretty much everyone thinks that way, yes. I know, it sucks.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
The NATO in a nutshell is Europe buying security in exchange for obedience.

So NATO is really a feudality. The Americans are the knights in shining armour, while the Europeans are the downtrodden peasants. Usually what happens is that the priests in Washington calls for a Crusade, and then charge in with their knights giving the non-believers the medival treatment. European peasants are then called in to guard the baggage train and clean up the mess afterwards. Sometimes the knights call on the help from mercenaries to beef up their numbers. Other times the inquisition is called in to help out with some torture.

[DanS]

Hey, if you don't like it, and want to do something about it, here's an invoice for at least 1% of your economy per annum to go to fighting war instead of lavishing it on your social programs.

Look what you're proposing to do to your poor people. They're starving while you are turning plowshares into swords.

[Arrian]

So NATO is really a feudality. The Americans are the knights in shining armour, while the Europeans are the downtrodden peasants. Usually what happens is that the priests in Washington calls for a Crusade, and then charge in with their knights giving the non-believers the medival treatment. European peasants are then called in to guard the baggage train and clean up the mess afterwards. Sometimes the knights call on the help from mercenaries to beef up their numbers. Other times the inquisition is called in to help out with some torture.

OMG, like your so smart! That's it exactly! Fight the power, man!

Fool.

-Arrian