- Finkelstein: Why Ukraine will never be a NATO member Archived Message
Posted by Morrissey
on July 15, 2023, 12:19 am
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... The Ukraine war is now in its 500th day, the country has been badly damaged and its combat forces have suffered losses in the hundreds of thousands. Still, at the Vilnius summit this past week, Ukraine was put on the elite club’s waiting list. The summit communique noted that a “NATO-Ukraine Council” was established to facilitate “Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO,” but actually belonging was as elusive as ever. Remonstrating that this was “absurd,” President Zelensky stomped his feet in protest, threatening not to attend the summit, until he was nudged that it’s not wise to bite the hand that feeds you. So the Vogue Warrior dutifully showed up and got some gentle pats on his keppele for being an obedient little boy. ..... The horrible truth is, NATO never slated Ukraine to join; that was just a goad and ploy. Instead, Washington ideally hoped to arm Ukraine to the teeth so as to neuter Russia militarily without firing a shot. But the US surely knew it was playing with fire. If John Mearsheimer and Stephen Cohen could correctly predict that Russia wouldn’t acquiesce in its deadly encirclement, it’s a stretch that Foggy Bottom was in the dark. Rather, in one simulation Russia would be provoked into a war so as to bleed it, but Ukraine—without NATO membership—would be left to its own devices, fighting and dying while the murder industries in the US made a killing. In other words, Ukraine is only useful without Article 5: its assigned role is to die for NATO, not vice versa. It was not only Russia that fell into NATO’s trap; so did Ukraine. (Albeit, Russia fell in wittingly; it had no better option.) The mask is now off and, it seems, the truth has sunk in even on the dim-witted Vogue Warrior. Hence his (truncated) tantrum. The ex B-grade comedian couldn’t resist the role of the century: half-Churchill (reading CIA-scripted pablum), half-Rambo (in his preposterous olive-green fatigues). He’s a real-life Woody Allen character straight out of Bananas or Sleeper. In way over his head, Zelensky was—choose your cliché—taken for a ride, played like a fiddle. Washington enticed Ukraine with the prospect of NATO membership supposedly to protect it from Russian aggression, whereas its real objective was to provoke a Russian aggression in which Ukraine would, alas, have to suffer devastation so that NATO could achieve an immaculate victory. Sound familiar? It should. In the 1930s Stalin pleaded with the Western powers to join with Russia in a collective security pact against the rising Nazi menace, while during World War II he pleaded with the other Allied powers to open up a second front (until 1944, virtually all the Nazi troops were fighting on the Eastern front). The West, however, had its own agenda: let the Soviets and Nazis bleed each other to death, and it could then walk away with the spoils. In an ironic historical symmetry, if Russia was then, Ukraine is today the sacrificial lamb. Still, even by the utterly cynical standards of Great Power politics, NATO’s perfidy in Ukraine is breathtaking. How exactly does NATO plan to uphold our “values and interests” against China’s “ambitions”? We will individually and collectively deliver the full range of forces, capabilities, plans, resources, assets and infrastructure needed for deterrence and defense, including for high-intensity, multi-domain warfighting against nuclear-armed peer-competitors. Accordingly, we will strengthen training and exercises that simulate conventional and, for Allies concerned, a nuclear dimension of a crisis or conflict, facilitating greater coherence between conventional and nuclear components of NATO’s deterrence and defense posture across all domains and the entire spectrum of conflict.… NATO is ready and able to deter aggression and manage escalation risks in a crisis that has a nuclear dimension. (emphasis added) This does not bode well. But even as this conclave of Dr. Strangeloves gears up for nuclear conflagration, it cannot be said that it is beyond redemption: We recognize the critical importance of women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation in all aspects of peace and stability … we will advance gender equality and integrate gender perspectives. Will a womyn get to press the button? http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/the-mask-is-off-why-ukraine-will-never-be-a-nato-member/ |
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