Requiem for Europe

10:04 25.04.2023 •

The so-called ‘European elites’ are in a very real sense traitors to their own countries – giving aid and comfort to the United States, a foreign entity, at the expense of the interests of their own populations. They are actually worse than Vidkun Quisling during the second world war. In Norway’s case, the Nazis had militarily occupied the country. Today, the US economically and politically occupies Europe, writes Alfred de Zayas, a law professor at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and a UN Independent Expert on International Order 2012-18, the author of ten books including “Building a Just World Order”.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement in China about developing “strategic autonomy” from the United States is empty posturing intended for the domestic French market. Macron is a light-weight and a political opportunist, like so many before him. He has done some back-pedalling since China, which justifies the criticism of some observers that describe him as “a well-oiled weathervane”. The rest of the Europeans are no better, as the meeting of G-7 Foreign Ministers in Nagano has shown.

This does not necessarily mean that rational considerations of self-interest in France, Germany, Italy, Spain might not eventually drive European governments to take concrete measures to buttress their own economies and assert European economic and political priorities – and not those of the Big Brother across the ocean. It is time to rethink the Ukraine crisis, its root causes and the consequences for European citizens – and for the world.

One can legitimately ask whether and when the European politicians will finally understand that an alliance with the US represents a liability, not an asset, that the United States, not Russia or China, constitute the greatest danger for the survival of the planet, as the Global Majority already knows.

The recent Pentagon leaks confirm that the US systematically spies on European leaders and European industry, that the US shamelessly uses the Europeans as pawns in its geopolitical agenda. The contempt that some US government officials have for Europe is reflected in the recorded statement of Victoria Nuland in 2014 in Kiev when she told the American Ambassador in Ukraine — “Fuck the EU”.

Europe’s euphoria about the United States is a form of unrequited love – and it will not be reciprocated anytime soon. On the contrary. The only role that the US has for Europe is that of a lowly vassal. And former investment banker Emmanuel Macron (Rothschild & Co) plays the game of the world elites, maybe a bit more elegantly than Olaf Scholz or the inept Ursula von der Leyen.

When we talk about assets, let us talk about abandoning Europe’s irrational dependence on the so-called US nuclear shield, its new addiction to the hyper-expensive and ecologically hyper-unfriendly US liquified natural gas. This does not mean de-coupling from the US entirely, but Europe must think about loosening the transatlantic link and gradually de-dollarizing.

For Europe’s economy it would be important to ditch US sanctions against Russia and other countries and to protect European businessmen against the threat of penalties by the US Department of the Treasury – an outrage that must be resisted through the reassertion of the prohibition of the extraterritorial application of domestic laws, which violates the sovereignty of other states. Europe must implement the international law obligation of every state to exercise diplomatic protection on behalf of its citizens, including its businessmen conducting legitimate business and trade abroad.

Part of the problem lies in brainwashing, propaganda, and public relations. Notwithstanding all the evidence readily available about the horrendous crimes committed by the US in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo, etc. the US still enjoys a relatively good reputation in Europe (not in the Global South) and even pretends to be the “leader” of the so-called “free world.” This really is the triumph of daily indoctrination by the mainstream media, social media, television, Hollywood.

Will the Europeans eventually understand that the US is not its friend and that essentially it never was?

The US intervention in the first and second world wars was driven purely by US economic interests and had little to do with the welfare of the Europeans. Similarly, the Marshall Plan was for us, the US, not for the Europeans, who continue being naively pro-American instead of defending their sovereignty as Charles de Gaulle once did in France. Unfortunately for everybody, de Gaulle’s successors have betrayed France and Europe.

Washington’s effort at full spectrum dominance led the world to the Georgia war of 2008 and to the Ukraine coup d’état of 2014. NATO expansion to the very frontiers of Russia, its arming of Ukraine and training of its army provoked the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Notwithstanding conventional “wisdom” and repetition, it is not impossible that one day Europeans will realize that NATO gradually morphed from a defensive alliance to a criminal organization within the meaning of articles 9 and 10 of the Statute of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.

It is obvious that since the dismantlement of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, there is no justification for NATO other than an attempt at self-perpetuation, and at usurping the functions of the UN Security Council. Countries like Finland and Sweden should be more circumspect about their wishes for security – sometimes people end up getting what they wished and it turns out to be contrary to their interests. Finland will yet grow to regret joining this criminal organization because it thereby becomes complicit in the aggressions and war crimes committed by NATO members in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria over the past 30 years.

Europe must stay clear of the Taiwan conflict, because any direct involvement would be contrary to Europe’s economic and political interests. Moreover, whether Europe wants it or not, the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative is a success with 150 countries buying into it. Europe would be isolating itself it it considers departing from the one-China principle.

Yet, what is reasonable and rational is not what necessarily happens in politics. One problem is that in matters of foreign policy no European country behaves like a democracy.

 

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