Tag: Europe

It Is Spreading Like A Virus

In recent years the far right hate has been spreading throughout the world….especially in Europe and the US….politicians like LePen of France, Orban of Hungary and of course our own beloved Donald the Orange and now the Netherlands….Geert Wilders has been around and mouthy for years and now he has a huge victory…..

After the huge election victory of far-right leader Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, the world is paying a lot more attention to Dutch politics and the country’s alphabet soup of political parties. Wilders’ Party for Freedom—PVV—won 37 of the 150 seats in the lower house of the country’s parliament, leaving the country in what the Economist calls an “awful quandary.” Other parties have had a “cordon sanitaire” around the PVV in recent years, refusing to include the anti-Islam, anti immigration party in coalition governments, but it’s unclear whether other parties will be able to assemble a majority of at least 76 this time.

The next three biggest parties after Wednesday’s election—a Labour-GreenLeft alliance, the VVD, the NSC, and an alliance of Labour and GreenLeft parties—only have a combined 69 seats and they are “not enthusiastic about co-operating with each other,” the Economist notes. There’s a chance they could still form a coalition with one or two smaller parties, though Wilders argues that it would be undemocratic to keep his party out of government. More:

  • How the “political earthquake” happened. Cas Mudde at the Guardian blames the “political earthquake” of Wilders’ surprising victory on Mark Rutte, the outgoing VVD prime minister. Rutte and his conservative party had hoped to dominate the election by shifting focus from a dispute involving farmers to the issue of asylum seekers, but they instead created fertile ground for Wilders, Mudde writes. “If you make the elections about the issues of the far right, notably the “problem” of immigration, the far right wins,” Mudde writes.
  • Victory is
  • boost for far-right across Europe. The AP reports that the strong showing for Wilders’ party has buoyed far-right populists across Europe, putting the movement back on track after a defeat in Poland last month. Those congratulating Wilders Thursday included Hungary’s Viktor Orban and France’s Marine Le Pen. Like Wilders, who wants to see a Dutch version of Brexit, Le Pen is strongly opposed to the European Union.
  • A “middle finger against the establishment.” Rene Cuperus at the Clingendael Institute think-tank tells Reuters that proposals including leaving the EU and banning the Koran are not what attracted voters to Wilders. “It’s not an anti-Islam vote. It’s not an anti-EU vote. No, it’s more a middle finger against the establishment,” Cuperus says. “It’s an anti-establishment signal … to really warn the established parties to fix the housing market crisis and to fix migration.”
  • The “Dutch Donald Trump.” The BBC looks at the background and policies of the man sometimes called the “Dutch Donald Trump,” who has been a prominent figure in the country’s politics for more than 25 years.

Other political parties were holding separate meetings to discuss the election’s outcome before what is likely to be an arduous process of forming a new governing coalition begins Friday. To become prime minister of a country known for compromise politics, Wilders must persuade other party leaders to work with him. The party that came next to Wilders’ in the election was an alliance of the center-left Labor Party and Green Left, which was forecast to win 25 seats, and its leader, Frans Timmermans, made clear that Wilders should not count on him as a partner. However, Pieter Omtzigt, a former centrist Christian Democrat who built his own New Social Contract party in three months to take 20 seats, said he would always be open to talks.

I hope that if any of this is wrong then my Dutch visitors will set the record straight.

These people are like disease infecting the world.

This situation will be fascinating to watch….the rise of these hate groupies is very disturbing and smacks of the 1920’s and 30’s.

Stay Tuned!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ukraine–Time For A Change

First I would like to pose the same question I have asked many times and of yet there is no answer forthcoming.

What does the US expect as a return on our investment in Ukraine?

Now for the meat of this post….

The US keeps throwing money at the conflict in Ukraine and I feel we have done more than enough….it is time for someone to take the lead on the Ukraine conflict.

Just this week the announcement was made that another $400 million aid package is being put together…..

The Biden administration on Friday announced a new $400 million weapons package for Ukraine that includes ammunition for the HIMARS rocket systems, artillery rounds, and 25mm ammunition for Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

The package is being provided through the presidential drawdown authority, which allows President Biden to arm Ukraine with weapons and ammunition sitting in US military stockpiles. The new equipment comes as the US is helping Ukraine prepare for a potential counteroffensive against Russian forces.

(antiwar.com)

Since the ‘threat’ from Russia is more a European problem then I think they should take the lead.

Instead of a quick Russian victory, Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine seems to be settling into a drawn-out slugfest. After Ukrainian soldiers surprisingly thwarted Russia’s offensive on Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city, the gleeful United States rallied NATO nations to provide the Ukrainians with tens of billions in weapons technology.

After some Ukrainian battlefield successes in throwing back the Russians in the east and south of Ukraine, which gained back some Russian-occupied territory, the United States and its allies gradually succumbed to the vision of decisively handing the Russian Bear with a stinging military defeat.

Yet, Russia still has some advantages. By essentially invading Crimea and parts of industrialized eastern Ukraine in 2014 and combining this conquered territory with that of its initial gains in the east and south in the 2022 invasion, the Russians have given the Ukrainians a Herculean task to recapture such a large land area against a more significant and sometimes well-dug-in occupying force

Unless the reported low morale of the Russian force causes it to suddenly collapse—as German troops did in 1918 during World War I—the war likely will turn into a long, bloody slog.

Although the West has emotionally rallied to Ukraine’s colors against a more formidable aggressor by providing tens of billions in military, economic and humanitarian aid, the United States now must make a hard-nosed analysis of whether its security requires a clear-cut Ukrainian victory, whether that’s even a realistic possibility, and if not, what a settlement of lands between the two countries would look like to create the best chance for a peaceful solution to the conflict that would endure.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14425

For me this idea makes a lot of sense….but since the defense industry is rolling in cash it will not be a workable plan for our Congress is wholly owned by the Defense industry.

Lastly let me ask the question again….

What return does the US expect for our massive investment in Ukraine?

Any thoughts or answers?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

NATO Exists To Solve Problems NATO Creates

Since 1992 I have not been a fan of NATO….in the beginning it was to solve the possible expansion of the former USSR…..after the break-up I did not see a threat(at that time) to Europe so I thought Clinton should have dissolved the group and let Europe come up with their own defense plan if ever needed.

I still am not a fan of NATO because I think they are expanding its reach far beyond Europe.

In recent years NATO has created more problems than it solves….

It has become fashionable among the mainstream western commentariat to claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had nothing to do with NATO expansion, but as recently explained by Philippe Lemoine for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, that’s a completely false narrative that requires snipping past comments made by Putin out of the context in which they were made. Many western experts warned for years in advance that NATO expansion would lead to a conflict like the one we’re seeing today, and they were of course correct.

The recent push to expand NATO in Ukraine along with nations like Finland and Sweden as justified by “Russian aggression” is a good example of what professor Richard Sakwa has called the “fateful geographical paradox: that NATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence.” As the late scholar on US-Russia relations Stephen Cohen explained years before the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2014, Moscow sees NATO as an “American sphere of influence,” and the expansion of NATO and NATO influence as expansion of that sphere. It reacts to this with hostility just as the US would react to China or Russia building up aggressive military alliances on its borders, and arguably with vastly more restraint than the US would.

Other future examples of Sakwa’s fateful geographical paradox are likely to include the push to reconfigure NATO into an alliance dedicated to “restraining” China, which of course means halting China’s rise on the world stage and working to constrict, balkanize and usurp it. A recent Financial Times article titled “Washington steps up pressure on European allies to harden China stance” gives new detail to this agenda:

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/nato-exists-to-solve-the-problems

I still think that NATO should be replaced with a European lead group….after all it is their necks on the line if Russia is truly the threat that so many think it is these days.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Who Pays?

The US Congress has voted overwhelmingly to allow Sweden and Finland into NATO…..a bad idea from my point of view…..since the 1990s the US and NATO have been poking Russia in th eye at almost every turn…..and then Ukraine happened.

Now the finger poking begins again….and how will that end? Better question is if Russia retaliates against Europe who pays?

An excellent question and with the US domination of the arms industry….who do you think will benefit the most?

If Europe wants to flex its underused muscle….what will be the outcome?

After Russia attacked Ukraine, European governments claimed to be serious about defense. However, so far few have acted on their latest promises. The continent’s continued reliance on America is evident from European proposals for military escalation — which could only be pursued by Washington. The Biden administration should insist on an alliance rebalance.

For more than seven decades, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has stood for North America and The Others. It was not supposed to be this way. Warned Dwight D. Eisenhower, NATO’s first supreme commander: “We cannot be a modern Rome guarding the far frontiers with our legions if for no other reason than that these are not, politically, our frontiers. What we must do is to assist these people [to] regain their confidence and get on their own military feet.”

However, even after recovering economically from World War II, European governments preferred to invest in their welfare states rather than their militaries. American policymakers preferred to dominate the continent’s decision-making rather than limit the U.S. public’s military liability. As a result, the U.S. consciously acted as a modern Rome. Still, Washington wanted the Europeans to do more. Alas, America’s clients provided promises rather than performance, reducing U.S. officials to begging.

A decade ago, soon-to-retire Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized Europe’s lackadaisical military efforts: “I’ve worried openly about NATO turning into a two-tiered alliance: Between members who specialize in ‘soft’ humanitarian, development, peacekeeping, and talking tasks, and those conducting the ‘hard’ combat missions. Between those willing and able to pay the price and bear the burdens of alliance commitments, and those who enjoy the benefits of NATO membership — be they security guarantees or headquarters billets — but don’t want to share the risks and the costs. This is no longer a hypothetical worry. We are there today. And it is unacceptable.”

So if Europe wants to escalate against Russia who foots the bill?

If push comes to shove in Europe the US will be on the hook with either troops, money, or weapons…..or all three.

An unacceptable situation that will be reality for the M-IC will always gets it’s way….it is why lobbyists throw money at Congress.

Time for a re-set.  NATO should have ended wit the fall of the Soviet Union.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

EU Has Plan

This post is for all my friends in Europe that their countries depend on Russian oil and gas.

By now most Europeans have heard the ban of Russian oil and gas….and I would imagine the question on their minds is …..how will we cope with this loss of resource?

Well the EU has a plan to help out with this situation……

Some 25% of all oil imports to the EU came from Russia last year. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is ready to take that figure down to zero. Von der Leyen on Wednesday proposed a total ban on Russian imports to the EU as part of a sixth package of sanctions, under which crude oil would be banned within six months and refined products by year’s end. What you need to know:

  • Context: Most of the oil the EU gets from Russia is used for gasoline and diesel for vehicles (14% of the EU’s diesel comes from Russia), reports the AP. That could make trucking even more expensive. This proposal doesn’t touch natural gas, which is used to heat homes and generate electricity. The EU gets about 40% of its natural gas from Russia, and alternatives are tougher to find.
  • Von der Leyen’s standout lines: “Let us be clear: it will not be easy. Some member states are strongly dependent on Russian oil. But we simply have to work on it. We now propose a ban on Russian oil. This will be a complete import ban on all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined,” she said, per the Guardian.

Next steps: The Wall Street Journal reports all 27 member states will need to give the proposal the OK. A decision is being sought within the week.

The asterisk: Under the proposal, Slovakia and Hungary would get an extra year to wean themselves fully off of Russian oil due to their current dependence on it. But the BBC reports Slovakia’s economy minister is seeking a three-year period to do so, and the New York Times quotes Hungary’s foreign minister as saying, “It is physically impossible to operate Hungary and the Hungarian economy without crude oil from Russia.”

Oil prices: Predictably, they jumped. Prices were up more than 3% on the news. The Journal notes it’s unlikely that every barrel the EU were to refuse would find a home elsewhere, meaning the global supply could shrink.

Yellen’s concern: The Journal points out that US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in early April pointed out the likelihood that a full ban could cause prices to soar; that could soften the blow of the lost EU revenue and lessen the impact of the sanctions on Russia.

That EU revenue. The Guardian cites calculations by NGO Europe Beyond Coal, which estimates the EU has paid roughly $22 billion to Russia for oil since the start of the invasion.

My question for my European visitors….does this plan solve anything?  Is it a sound plan?  Or is it a band-aid?

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Money Well Spent

Closing Thought–10Dec20

I am always going on and on about the money that government pisses away….and sadly the US government is not the only waster of taxpayer cash…..

This story about Venice……that is in Italy not Florida…..

St. Mark’s Square in Venice was submerged on Tuesday, and an incorrect forecast may be to blame. The city has since October had an experimental system of inflatable barriers in place to prevent flooding. Thing is, the $8 billion system is activated when high tides are expected to reach a minimum of 4 feet, 4 inches. On Tuesday, the waters were predicted to hit just 4 feet, 1 inch, below the activation threshold. But they reached just over 4 feet, 6 inches, flooding shops and restaurants. Stronger-than-expected winds are apparently to blame for the elevated tides. “Unfortunately, the weather is freer than us. It does what it wants,” said Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro. The AFP notes the city’s lowest point is St. Mark’s Square, which sits roughly three feet above sea level.

The AP reports Venice suffered its worst flooding in half a century a year ago, when high tides hit 6.5 feet. The barriers—78 moveable ones—can safeguard the city from tides of up to 10 feet and is designed to be readied in just 30 minutes. But the Guardian explains that by the time the water reached the lagoon Tuesday morning, it was too late to get the system up and running. That system is known as MOSE (that’s (MOdulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, or Experimental Electromechanical Module), a nod to the Biblical figure Moses, who parted the waters of the Red Sea. Brugnaro commented on the learnings from Tuesday’s flooding, “To activate MOSE a bigger forecast is necessary. We will have to review the rules of the command post.”

Good to know that it seems to be a human trait no matter which side of the pond they are on.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

US Troop Deployment

Closing Thought–13Dec19

The US has troops all over the globe…..from Far East to Iceland……I a era when we no longer need to worry about the USSR and Russia has a friend in the White House why do we need a massive troop deployment for Europe?

I understand why we needed the massive amount of troops in Europe to thwart a Soviet attack…..but why these days?

The US is sending massive amount of troops to Europe in 2020….

In 2020, the US Army will be carrying out its biggest deployment in 25 years into Europe. The deployment will send 20,000 US troops, and 13,000 pieces of equipment across Europe for wargames beginning in May and running through June

US Gen. Christopher Cavoli would not define the operation as aimed at Russia, but did tie it to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, saying it “changed everything.” The large deployment will be difficult.

That’s because as with most recent operations, the US will be sending forces largely into former Warsaw Pact countries, and those countries have railroads incompatible with Western Europe. Moreover, the bridges in those countries were built without envisioning having to support the heaviest of US tanks.

According to Gen. Cavoli, the large deployment of US troops is meant to “demonstrate the US military’s ability to quickly deploy a large force.” This comes amid constantly escalating rhetoric against Russia.

(antiwar.com)

I would like someone in the government to walk out to the cameras and ask why……

Why does this world need that many more US troops to hold the line (so to speak)?

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Fires!

Closing Thought–16Apr19

The world has heard of the catastrophic fire in the cathedral of Notre Dame…..and this is what we know so far….

At 6:20 p.m on Monday, the first call to emergency services came in, but no fire was visible at that time, Paris prosecutor Rémy Heitz said. The first call mentioned a fire in the attic, according to the fire brigade.20 minutes later, a second alert was called in, and the fire was visible at that point, the prosecutor said.Around 400 firefighters were deployed to the scene but were delayed slightly by rush hour traffic.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/16/europe/notre-dame-explainer-scli-intl/index.html?no-st=1555429417

The media was fixated on Notre Dame…the third holiness sites of Islam was also aflame……

A fire broke out at the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem just as flames ravaged the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Footage showing smoke and fire emerging from the roof of a structure known as the Marwani Prayer Room, or Solomon’s Stables, could be seen on social media. The Palestine News Agency, the official outlet of the Palestinian National Authority, cited a guard as saying Monday that “the fire broke out in the guard’s room outside the roof of the Marwani Prayer Room, and the fire brigade of the Islamic Waqf handled the matter successfully.”

No injuries or damage was reported during the short blaze.

https://www.newsweek.com/notre-dame-fire-aqsa-mosque-1397259

All in all a bad day for holy sites……

 

That “Marshall Plan”

As usual the old professor is about to drop some history on you….was that an eye roll?

Whenever some economic plan comes about it is compared to the Marshall Plan of the 1940s….but since the nation is so damn young now how many actually knows what the Plan was about?

Well I can help with that lack of knowledge……

The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. The brainchild of U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, for whom it was named, it was crafted as a four-year plan to reconstruct cities, industries and infrastructure heavily damaged during the war and to remove trade barriers between European neighbors – as well as foster commerce between those countries and the United States.

In addition to economic redevelopment, one of the stated goals of the Marshall Plan was to halt the spread communism on the European continent.

Implementation of the Marshall Plan has been cited as the beginning of the Cold War between the United States and its European allies and the Soviet Union, which had effectively taken control of much of central and eastern Europe and established its satellite republics as communist nations.

The Marshall Plan is also considered a key catalyst for the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance between North American and European countries established in 1949.

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/marshall-plan-1

But with this gesture of goodwill was not without a bunch of myths…..was not all rainbows and unicorns……

Perhaps the most persistent and enduring myth in modern British history is that the country did badly, in comparison with its European neighbours, out of the Marshall Plan, the scheme of American largesse that funded the reconstruction of war-ravaged western Europe. But it is simply not true.

West Germany received $1.7 billion of postwar aid from the United States, which it invested primarily in capital and infrastructure, paving the way for the Wirtschaftswunder, the postwar economic miracle that turned the country into a manufacturing powerhouse, which, even after the considerable cost of reunification in 1990, it remains.

Britain, as victor, had an understandable sense of entitlement – and let us not forget the nature of the regime that it and its Empire had helped defeat – but, as an indication of the sacrifice it had made, it ended the conflict with an economy more like that of a defeated or occupied nation.

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/editor/marshall-myths

You now know more than you did before reading…..

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

An European Army?

Closing Thought–12Nov18

WTF?

I shared this info with a loyal reader of IST from the UK, https://beetleypete.wordpress.com/ , I try to get first hand info on stories I read….Pete has a great mind and lets me know what’s what in the UK and EU…..his takes are much appreciated.

The French dude has called for a standing “European Army” to protect the continent from Russia and the US…..really from the US?

Emmanuel Macron is calling for the formation of a “real European army,” and while two of that potential force’s foes, per the French president, are usual suspects, it’s the third that’s raising eyebrows. During a tour of WWI memorials in Verdun on Tuesday, Macron encouraged countries in Europe to establish a unified military effort to shield the continent “with respect to China, Russia, and even the United States of America,” reports AFP, via Time. “When I see President Trump announcing that he’s quitting a major disarmament treaty, who is the main victim? Europe and its security,” Macron noted, apparently referencing Trump’s pulling out of a nuclear weapons pact with Russia last month.

“Peace in Europe is precarious,” he added, with the Guardian noting Macron also warned of rising populism and nationalism there. Macron will be hosting a global “peace conference” in Paris on Sunday that will include Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, among other top leaders, and he’s expected to keep cautioning against what he calls the “leprosy” of nationalism—especially when compared to the past. “I am struck by similarities between the times we live in and those between the two world wars,” he told local media. The BBC, meanwhile, doesn’t know if this idea will ever fly, noting that “there is no evidence that any group of European countries has the political will or economic muscle to spend sufficiently on defense to make up for the United States’ raw power.”

Most of Europe is in the clutches of austerity programs so I do not think the cash is there for another standing army…..and then there is the “will”…don’t think there is much of that either.