KT McFarland: 2020 Democrats prove they are willfully blind to Trump's foreign policy strategy

The six candidates criticized Trump for not having better relations with our allies. But they neglected to mention that by shaming of our NATO allies for being freeloaders, Trump has gotten them to contribute an additional $100 billion more toward our common defense.

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Minsk discusses with NATO possibility of joint peacekeeping exercises

Belarus is participating in talks with NATO on holding joint peacekeeping exercises, the Belarussian Defense Ministry told TASS on Tuesday.

"As far as joint exercises with NATO are concerned, the issue on the agenda is negotiations, and not preparations," the Defense Ministry said.

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NATO ISLAMIC Turkey taking delivery of Russian S-400 Missile System not compatible NATO System

Trump & NATO warmongers proclaim peace

At the 75th anniversary this week of the Allied assault on Nazi-occupied France, US President Donald Trump and other NATO leaders issued a “D-Day Proclamation.” In it, they pledged never “to repeat the horror of World War Two.”

The US and 15 other nations, including Britain, France, and Canada, also declared their commitment to “resolve international tensions peacefully.”

If the so-called D-Day proclamation sounds like a load of PR twaddle, that’s because it is.

Evidently, it was hurriedly put together for some feel-good effect as Trump and others commemorated Operation Overlord to the strains an army brass band and Vera Lynn’s wartime paean ‘We’ll Meet Again’. The noble sacrifices of soldiers and civilians in the defeat of Nazi fascism would have to be given some token of decorum in the form of a peaceful proclamation, so it seems.

However, the proclamation by Trump and his gang of NATO warmongers has to be seen as nothing but cynical lip-service.

While commemorating a past naval offensive “for peace,” the US has at the very same time deployed warships and nuclear-capable B-52 bombers in the Persian Gulf in a blatant show of aggression towards Iran. Washington is flagrantly using military force to subjugate Tehran to its geopolitical demands. So much for “resolving international tensions peacefully.”

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NATO-Exit: Dismantle NATO, Close Down 800 US Military Bases, Prosecute the War Criminals

This text prepared in the context of the April 7 2019 Florence International Conference: No War, No NATO will centre on the key relationship between US-NATO military operations directed against targeted countries and the imposition of  far-reaching neoliberal economic reforms both before and in the wake of US-NATO military interventions. 

This article will also address the dangers and consequences of a Third World War as well the nature of advanced weapons systems deployed by the broader US-NATO coalition.

Extensive war crimes have been committed by NATO member states.

The object of the Florence Venue is NATO-EXIT. The Dismantling of NATO and the closure of US military bases. 

There is a (somewhat contradictory) clause within the Treaty of the Atlantic Alliance (Article 13) which enables withdrawal from NATO. This clause has to be examined and a strategy must be envisaged.

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Forever War, Evermore: The Congressional Left Saves NATO, Trump Goes Empire First

The past week has brought still more evidence that America is fiscally doomed owing to the twin burdens of the Welfare State and Warfare State. The latter, of course, is demographically and politically immovable owing to the coming tsunami of Baby Boom retirements and the absolute cowardice of the GOP when it comes to curtailing the social security and medical entitlements and performing its job as the tribune of fiscal rectitude in American democracy.

But the Warfare State’s grip on the nation’s finances is no less forbidding, as we learned from two new outbreaks of Empire First in Washington. That is, the Donald’s embrace of gung-ho interventionism in Venezuela and the 100% vote of the newly elected liberal firebrands in the U.S. House for preservation of NATO.

So the fiscal math is straightforward and prohibitive. A decade or so down the road the Welfare State will cost 18.5% of GDP under current law, the Warfare State will be pushing 5% of GDP when you count Veterans and interest on past wars, and the rest of government – including even minimal pork barrel and normalized interest expense – will a cost at least 4% of GDP.

That brings the future outlays side of the Federal budget to 27% of GDP at a minimum (compared to 21% this year) relative to a revenue baseline which will not even reach 17% of GDP this year; and which is ferociously guarded by the junk yard dogs of the anti-tax GOP, who have sabotaged any and all efforts to find more benign sources of revenue (such as a consumption tax) – even as they remain AWOL on cutting entitlements, the domestic pork barrel or anything else.

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US, Europe & NATO risk all-out war by backing unhinged Kiev regime

With the US, EU and NATO all bolstering claims of “Russian aggression” – in face of contrary evidence – the real danger is that the Kiev regime will be emboldened to carry out more reckless provocations leading to all-out war.

It seems indisputable that the three Ukrainian Navy vessels were dispatched last Sunday in order to instigate a security response from Russian maritime border forces. In contrast to normal procedures for passage clearance through the Kerch Strait, the Ukrainian warships refused to communicate with Russian controls and acted menacingly inside Russia’s Black Sea territorial limits.

At a United Nations Security Council emergency meeting on Monday, the US, Britain and France pointedly refused to take on board Russia’s legal argument for why it felt obliged to detain the Ukrainian boats and 24 crew. The Western powers automatically sided with the version of events claimed by President Petro Poroshenko – that the Ukrainian Navy was attacked unlawfully by Russia.

The US, EU and NATO denounced Russia’s “aggression” and demanded that the Ukrainian vessels and crew be repatriated immediately, even though under Russian law there is a case for prosecution.

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Dangerous Crossroads: Extensive Russian and Allied War Games in Response to US-NATO Military Buildup

Barely reported by the Western media, Russia has launched a series of war games in Europe and the Far East together with several of its allies.  These war games are largely in response to NATO’s military buildup on Russia’s Western frontier, in Eastern Europe, The Baltic States and Scandinavia.

They also coincide with Donald Trump’s decision to repeal the 1987 INF agreement signed between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. The Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty (INF), “aimed to eliminate short and medium range nuclear missiles.”

We are at a dangerous crossroads in our history. The broader public must be informed, particularly in NATO countries. It is crucial to restore sanity in international diplomacy to prevent the unthinkable. 

Examine the overlapping chronology of these war games. (September-December 2018).

The structure of military alliances has shifted. Russia and China have harnessed the support of two of Washington’s (former?) allies, namely India and Pakistan, both of which are now full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). 

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Trump Treats EU Like Bozos

You can’t really blame Trump for treating European leaders with contempt. Frankly, it’s because they deserve it, and Trump knows it.

This week, the American president joins European allies at the NATO summit in Brussels, and the gathering is expected to be a bruising one. The Europeans are fearing a drubbing from Trump over financial commitments.

Last month at the Group of Seven summit in Canada, the brash US president gave his counterparts a tongue-lashing, telling them that the NATO military alliance was obsolete due to their lack of financial support.

Holding back no punches, Trump followed up with a letter to European leaders warning if they don’t shell out more on NATO then he would consider withdrawing US troops from Europe.

Well, don’t you know, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have reportedly jumped to it, to sign off on massive increases in their countries’ military budgets, in line with Trump’s demands, just ahead of his arrival in Brussels this week.

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NATO Virus is Spreading, Aggressive & Immune to Any Antibiotic of Logic

Like a geographical virus the spread of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has broken all natural boundaries. It is immune to any antibiotic of logic and poses a deadly threat to the health, peace and stability of the world.

For decades in the West, NATO was believed to have been a defensive response to the creation of the Warsaw Pact - despite the fact that it was formed long before the treaty, which has in turn been nearly 30 years dead. Nonetheless, like death and taxes, membership of NATO has been assumed to be one of life's few certainties with an increasing share of national wealth going to pay for it.

This might have gone on unquestioned but for the multiple East-West crises of the last few years and the bizarre inclusion of, brothers-in-arms and non-North Atlantic states, Colombia and Israel in recent NATO activity.

Almost overnight, interest in my long-quiescent No2 NATO campaign has picked up as public opinion has switched on like a light to the fact that there is little that is defensive about NATO and even less that is North Atlantic.

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A Guide to Top Anti-Russia US Think Tanks and Their Operatives

When you watch coverage of Russia in the US and UK mainstream media, know that many of the so-called ‘foreign policy’ experts are actually on the payroll of deep state think tanks which are extensions of the western military industrial complex. This is important to remember as you see them constantly advocating in western media for a more aggressive stance against Russia.

The same goes for individuals touted in the media as having ‘evidence’ which they always claim implicates Russia and Syria for various and sundry misdeeds – and in every case, their fallacious case is directly tied to a US or NATO military operation. Such dubious ‘experts’ include Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat (Atlantic Council/NATO), and Clint Watts from the new Hamilton 68 (an associate of the antediluvian cold warrior deep state think tank called Foreign Policy Research Institute), and Michael Weiss of the Daily Beast and CNN (Atlantic Council/NATO). By recognizing these individuals and the pseudo ‘think tank’ organizations who employ them, you can see easier how the western mainstream media is able to maintain an around-the-clock constant stream of pro-war propaganda, which in turn helps to propel the US and NATO war economies.

Bryan MacDonald from RT International has compiled a brief summary of the leading anti-Russia think tanks in the US, along with their key operatives and who funds them…

Countering Russia has become a lucrative industry in Washington. In recent years, the think tank business has exploded. But who funds these organizations, who works for them and what are the real agendas at play?

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It’s Nato that’s Empire-building, not Putin

Just for once, let us try this argument with an open mind, employing arithmetic and geography and going easy on the adjectives. Two great land powers face each other. One of these powers, Russia, has given up control over 700,000 square miles of valuable territory. The other, the European Union, has gained control over 400,000 of those square miles. Which of these powers is expanding? 

There remain 300,000 neutral square miles between the two, mostly in Ukraine. From Moscow’s point of view, this is already a grievous, irretrievable loss. As Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the canniest of the old Cold Warriors, wrote back in 1997, ‘Ukraine… is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.’ 

This diminished Russia feels the spread of the EU and its armed wing, NATO, like a blow on an unhealed bruise. In February 2007, for instance, Vladimir Putin asked sulkily, “Against whom is this expansion intended?” 

I have never heard a clear answer to that question. The USSR, which NATO was founded to fight, expired in August 1991. So what is Nato’s purpose now? Why does it even still exist? 

There is no obvious need for an adversarial system in post-Soviet Europe. Even if Russia wanted to reconquer its lost empire, as some believe (a belief for which there is no serious evidence), it is too weak and too poor to do this. So why not invite Russia to join the great western alliances? Alas, it is obvious to everyone, but never stated, that Russia cannot ever join either NATO or the EU, for if it did so it would unbalance them both by its sheer size. There are many possible ways of dealing with this. One would be an adult recognition of the limits of human power, combined with an understanding of Russia’s repeated experience of invasions and its lack of defensible borders. 

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Double Standards? Europe’s Five “Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States”. Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey

Amply documented, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey are in possession of nuclear weapons which are deployed under national command against Russia, Iran and the Middle East.

Following the failed July 2016 military coup in Turkey, the media reported on Turkey’s nuclear weapons stored and deployed at the Incirlik airbase. 

The US National Resources Defense Council in a February 2005 report confirmed Turkey’s deployment of 90 so-called tactical B61 nuclear weapons, some of which were subsequently decommissioned    

The stockpiling and deployment of tactical B61 in these five “non-nuclear states” are intended for targets in the Middle East. Moreover, in accordance with  “NATO strike plans”, these thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs (stockpiled by the “non-nuclear States”) could be launched  “against targets in Russia or countries in the Middle East such as Syria and Iran” ( quoted in National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005, emphasis added) 

In 2016, press reports including Deutsche Welle confirmed the deployment of Turkey’s 50 B61 nuclear weapons out it Incirlik air force base.  But this has been known for years. It took the media ten years to acknowledge that Turkey (a non-nuclear State) possesses a sizeable nuclear arsenal. 

There was however some confusion in the media reports as to the nature of the nuclear bombs stored and deployed at Incirlik. They are B61 gravity bombs [of the bunker buster type] with nuclear warheads,  with an explosive capacity of up to 170 kilotons (up to 12 times a Hiroshima bomb).

The accuracy of the numbers of bombs quoted in the media reports remains to be acertained. Some of the bombs were decommissioned. Some of them may have been replaced with a more recent version  including the B61-11. 

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United Nations Adopts Historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

At approximately 11AM on July 7, 2017, following a recorded vote of 122 states in favor, 1 opposed (Netherlands in opposition, on behalf of all NATO states), and 1 abstention (Singapore), Ambassador Elayne Whyte Gomez, Costa Rican Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, and President of the “United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination,” announced the adoption of this treaty, which had been awaited for 70 years, the legally binding norm prohibiting nuclear weapons. 

Following Ambassador Whyte’s announcement, the entire assembly of ambassadors, other delegates and non-government organizations in Conference Room 1 immediately stood, many embraced and all 122 States in support exultantly applauded this historic and long overdue achievement by the majority of member states of the United Nations, none of whom possess nuclear weapons, and all of whom are unified in seeking to end the reign of terror imposed on the world by certain of the states possessing nuclear weapons.

It is surprising that the U.S., the U.K. and France have issued a statement flaunting their violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty: they are required by Article 6 of that treaty “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control,” which is precisely what the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons constitutes.

The authors of this press statement evidently consider themselves above international law, and not beholden to any legal restrictions on their use of force. With this press statement, the US, the UK and France have forfeited moral legitimacy, and as permanent members of the Security Council are divested of any authority to sanction North Korea. Further, they should themselves be sanctioned for their violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Their indifference to this new treaty’s basis in international humanitarian law, one of the treaty’s pillars, gives the lie to their pretense of concern for humanitarian considerations which they frequently cite, deceptively, during their speeches at the Security Council.

But July 7, 2017 will remain a pivotal date in the history of the United Nations, the day on which the majority of countries of the developing world, and many of the responsible and mature nations of the “developed world” have confronted the nuclear states with the uncivilized character of their possession of nuclear weapons, and the moral and practical imperative of divesting themselves of these insane instruments of horror.

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Bewilderment & Panic in NATO Headquarters in Brussels

CIA-NATO Press for Turkey-Russia War

Breaking: 500 NATO Troops Deployed To Lithuania As Part Of Anti-Russia Force

Obama Sends Special Forces To Russia's Border - World War 3 In The Making

Newsbud Breaking News: "NATO Chief Auditor in Charge of Terrorism Funding Murdered in Belgium"

NATO Reaffirms Its Bogus Russia Narrative

It’s unnerving to realize that the NATO alliance – bristling with an unprecedented array of weapons including a vast nuclear arsenal – has lost its collective mind. Perhaps it’s more reassuring to think that NATO simply feels compelled to publicly embrace its deceptive “strategic communications” so gullible Western citizens will be kept believing its lies are truth.

But here were the leaders of major Western “democracies” lining up to endorse a Warsaw Summit Communiqué condemning “Russia’s aggressive actions” while knowing that these claims were unsupported by their own intelligence agencies.

The leaders – at least the key ones – know that there is no credible intelligence that Russian President Vladimir Putin provoked the Ukraine crisis in 2014 or that he has any plans to invade the Baltic states, despite the fact that nearly every “important person” in Official Washington and other Western capitals declares the opposite of this to be reality.

But there have been a few moments when the truth has surfaced. For instance, in the days leading up to the just-completed NATO summit in Warsaw, General Petr Pavel, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, divulged that the deployment of NATO military battalions in the Baltic states was a political, rather than military, act.

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