NATO will not join US–Israel campaign, Rutte says
(tvpworld.com)
EuropeDutchie here, before Mark Rutte was SG of NATO he was our PM for over a decade where he earned the nickname Teflon Mark: no scandal sticks, no political storm makes him wet. Why? Because he can say anything in a way that makes you believe he is telling the truth. Before you know it this man has no active memory of any meeting that was about not-joining and suddenly 'remember' a meeting about joining. If you do not want your country participating in this war, do not sit back and relax because this guy says it won't happen. He is not all bad, but i'd advise anyone (except Trump) to not take what he says too serious.
How dare NATO not invoke article 5 because Iran defended themselves!
Well duh, it's a defensive alliance.
Tell that to the people of yugoslavia in 1999
I did, they were in my class growing up in Canada, they said thanks. Have you talked to any of those people who fled that genocide?
Not my point at all. I did in no way say it was unjustified. I was just saying it was offensive and thus contradicted what the original comment said.
You know, I don't actually know how that unfolded. Was it NATO itself, or just all the NATO members? I kind of assumed it was like Iraq.
That was a humanitarian intervention to STOP a genocide.
I bet most were happy that the Serbians were reigned in. Even many Serbians.
NATO has intervened in situations where they had a UN mandate.
Well… I think a lot of people in Iran are also happy about these strikes.
But that does not change the fact that Nato is clearly not only defensive.
I don’t get the downvotes, you are correct. The OP’s comment that NATO only intervenes defensively is clearly wrong.
Should they intervene here? No, definitely not because this is a stupid, stupid war, and that’s reason enough.
I think it’s my mistake for wording my comment in such a way that it sounds like I think the intervention in Yugoslavia was bad. That was not the point I was making, but I see how it could be interpreted as such.
They were defending those people, no?
Yea.. poor Yugoslavia that already faced three UN resolutions concluding their violation of basic human rights wasn't allowed to go on with their ethnic cleansing. Shocking! /s
Correct me if I’m wrong. But the UN didn’t mandate the intervention, right? Therefore nato was in violation of international law.
But that’s besides the point. I commented under a commenting claiming Nato is purely defensive. Which it clearly isn’t.
But the UN didn’t mandate the intervention, right?
Pretty hard to get the UN to mandate anything substantial if there's almost always a veto power protecting its pawns...
Now your moving the goal post. I’m not arguing about if the UN is effective or not. Just arguing that the UN didn’t sanction the bombing, unlike you implied.
If there's ethnic cleansing going on, do you want to wait for the UN to act (in vain, because veto powers) or do you act based on the principles the UN should act on if it actually worked?
Because let's not pretend that the UN actually decided on the substance of that matter and decided against it based on what was happening. It never decided solely due to political reasons and its architecture.
If you want to hold that against NATO, fine. Sometimes, being technically correct isn't the thing to aspire.
At least in that circumstance there were already active hostilities that did threaten to flood NATO countries with Albanian refugees trying to escape ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and a strong possibility that the conflict would expand into NATO states.
In this war with Iran there is nothing but Israeli bloodthirst and an American President who desperately needs a distraction and something to regroup his base.
I guess? But where does nato draw the line? Does it bomb a country because it can possibly attack a nato memberstate in 30 years?
How do you get there from what was an ongoing genocide and an immanent threat? Has NATO ever bombed a country because they might attack in 30 years? There is your answer.
Well, Iran having nukes could also be seen as an imminent threat. I just don’t see why one thing would be seen as defensive and the other thing wouldn’t be.
Or Bosnia in 95
Nato intervened when Serbian forces committed genocide against the Bosnians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War
the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre later became iconic of the conflict. The massacre of over 8,000 Bosniak males by Serb forces
That's when NATO decided to intervene.
How come the one conflict where NATO was in the right and defended an ethnic Muslim minority is what people chose to die arguing against
Because it made Russia and China really nervous and that's the propaganda they choose to spread through leftist circles.
*rightist
Well they both hate NATO now yeah.
After popular pressure, NATO was asked by the United Nations to intervene in the Bosnian War after allegations of war crimes against civilians were made.
On 6 February 1994, a day after the first Markale marketplace massacre, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali formally requested NATO to confirm that air strikes would be carried out immediately.[12] On 9 February, agreeing to the request of the UN, NATO authorized the Commander of Allied Joint Force Command Naples (CINCSOUTH), US Admiral Jeremy Boorda, to launch air strikes against artillery and mortar positions in and around Sarajevo that were determined by UNPROFOR to be responsible for attacks against civilian targets.
So far the only country I'm not appalled by their reaction is Spain. The rest are all so luke warm or plain wtf. Specially Germany. I feel like since WW1 they have an subscribtion on standing on the wrong side. Today they called in Iranian diplomats to tell them they should adhere to the rules of war and not bomb civilians.
Meanwhile Israel started off the war by bombing a primary school & hospital. But that's cool for the German goverment since Israel did not confirm they did it. So they are obviously adhering ho the rules of war.
That goes without saying, given that this is a completely illegal war of aggression. It is inconceivable that the EU is nevertheless acting as if these were allies. This war is a crime and serves to distract from further crimes: in the US, from the fact that the country is run by a fascist pedophile ring, and in Israel, from genocidal fascists whose agent, Epstein, made all this possible in the first place.
It is outrageous that the EU has not withdrawn from NATO and continues to supply weapons to the monsters in Israel.
Most insane to me is that, it’s EU who will have to deal with humanitarian crisis and spend more money supporting Ukraine to offset Russia’s oil profits from increasing prices.
Call me crazy but US seems to have more interest in supporting Russia’s war and destabilizing EU than destroying Iran’s regime. As part of this operation at least
Withdrawing from NATO doesn't make sense. It would probably take upwards of 20-30 years to replace what would be lost by doing that. It's not worth it. I 100% agree with everything else you stated, though.
In that case, better start preparing for that replacement as soon as possible. Ideally way back when the US invoked Article 5 the first time.
I understand your point, but I disagree. I think NATO effectively no longer exists anyway - better to get rid of it sooner rather than later. The US recently threatened a war of aggression against one of its founding members. Now would be the right time to punish the geopolitical excesses of the criminal US-regime by creating a new alliance. The US is only a world power because of its military apparatus, which is financed on credit.
I see no reason not to let the existing world order collapse, because it has brought nothing but misery since the end of World War II.
Edit: There can no longer be any talk of a community of values with the US, as the regime there proves on a daily basis. It is more than unlikely that this will change, as the US population remains passive and will therefore soon be living in a dictatorship that will no longer pretend to be any different from oligarchies such as Russia. Therefore, I think, it makes little difference to orient oneself towards China instead.
I think NATO effectively no longer exists anyway - better to get rid of it sooner rather than later.
De facto NATO is dead, because the US - it's most powerful member - can no longer be trusted. I hope the political leaders of all other Member States see this.
But that doesn't mean it no longer any value. It's main goal has become deterrence, and Russia and China still need to be deterred.
because it has brought nothing but misery since the end of World War II.
This is totally false, you can argue it has brought misery but you cannot say it didn't bring any good.
The 80 years before it's creation (and the creation of the UN) have been much more violent than the 80 years since. Sure Asia and the Global South haven't shared in the peace it brought, but it's not like the west had brought peace there before.
There might be a better future without Nato, but i don't think the world as a whole would've been better off if Nato never existed in the first place. The Sovjet union would probably still be there for example, and except for the ruling class that was not a nice place to live in.
I see no reason not to let the existing world order collapse, because it has brought nothing but misery since the end of World War II.
How can you say that when the whole point of the existing world order was to prevent another World War II, which they have been successful at? There haven't been any wars with as many lives lost as that one ever since, largely in part due to the fact that every time someone looked like they wanted to take over the world again, the rest of the democratic world united to force them where otherwise divided they would succeed.
Don't hold me responsible for this, hold Trump responsible.
You said "since the end of World War II" not "since Trump was elected". How can I hold Trump responsible for things that happened before he was even born?
Aren't we all learning globally our governments aren't what they tell us they are?
Yes, absolutely. And that is precisely why we should see to it that all politicians who have benefited from this system are eliminated in democratic countries. For western democracies, this is basically synonymous with eliminating US lobbying and therefore includes most established politicians.
However, the democratic process for doing so is significantly hampered by the fact that social media in particular, but also legacy media is owned by billionaires. This ensures that only a minority in a given country is informed about the fact that only of a tiny fraction of the population, the richest 1%, in all Western democracies has benefited from this system while the population got exploited.
For Germany, for example, this means that under no circumstances one should vote for the AfD, because it is MAGA with the same goals and the same influential financiers - just a different brand.
The exploitation didn't really start until the 1980's. Before then, the population was benefiting as well.
No, I live in a functioning democracy, don't normalize your electoral college nonsense on me.
Why would the EU withdraw from NATO? What has NATO done to piss them off?
It's in my comment above, but I'm happy to repeat it for you: By threatening to invade Greenland, the US has threatened a founding member of NATO with a war of aggression.
NATO isn't pissing itself off, just one of its member countries is pissing off all the others: the US.
Right, so the EU wouldn't withdraw from NATO, they would kick the US out of it.
Although NATO has survived hotter internal conflicts before, it can probably come out of this intact if Trump turns out to be an abberation.
No shit point to me in the map where Israel is in the North Atlantic.
