A NATO debate?

In today’s Hbl (of Ons 12.03.14, p.19) there appeared a whole-page article titled ”Nato – en debatt som måste föras” which was signed by five politicians of the SFP who all had, at some time or other, been Finnish ministers of defence.

In the article they urgently speak in favour of finally starting a serious public discussion about the question whether Finland should join the NATO.

Well, who would not want a serious public debate about an important political question where every side is giving all its reasons and the best reasons win? That is how democracy should work after all …

Of course it is fairly obvious to what type of decision the authors of the article are tending: as I wrote in my piece about ”Ukraina”, all the invited speakers of the SFP agreed that Europe and the USA should speak with one voice about the Ukraina (and presumably also other) problems … . Well, in a democracy the champions of different opinions should come up with their reasons, and the best reasons should win.

Only, in our democracy this will unluckily not work. Among the reasons why that is so, there is the fact that our media (presumably with the approval by some politicians) have been slapping a taboo on some of the reasons which would speak against joining NATO, making those reasons unusable.

Let’s look at the situation. The leading power of NATO are the USA, who are also in the habit of every now and then demanding that the other members should follow the US leadership. The other members do not folow that leadership every time (for which they are often described in pretty ugly terms by the USA, but well, the memory even of Americans is short …), but as we know our Finnish politicians (especially of Kokoomus and SFP), the possibility that Finland would indeed follow an US lead even in doubtful situations is in fact there.

Concerning the US, we should perhaps remember the huge (and world-wide) relief when George W. Bush was finally out of office (it resulted in the Nobel Peace Prize for Obama – to which he did not fully live up …). And there is of course, during EVERY presidental election in the USA, the possibility that another person like G. W. Bush wins (whose leadership our politicians would, in spite of possible reservations, feel obliged to follow).

If G. W. Bush had been on trial in Nürnberg after 1945, the sentence for him and his team had been Death by Hanging (for planning, preparing and conducting an unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq). But of course, in practice a US president is always above any law (except perhaps when misbehaving sexually), and he knows it, the Western world accepts it, and the Western media submit to it. The events around 9/11 are only another example of this: pictures on German TV on 2.02.2014 were (as mentioned earlier in my ”German Light on 9/11”, if I remember correctly) just proving another time that the official version of the 9/11 events are incompatible with the laws of physics. But (with VERY few exceptions) our media obediently forget whatever they have ever learned at school about physics, and the same about our politicians: to doubt the official version of 9/11 means ”to cultivate conspiracy theories” (against which there is a carefully observed taboo), while of course conspiracy theories in practice continue to be the daily bread of every criminal investigation …

Otherwise, joining NATO would still invite additional pressure to buy ”NATO-compatible” weapons, which will tend to be expensive but second-rate (first-rate US weapons being reserved for USA and Israel), in non-military matters it would add to the pressure to join all those criminal trade agreements which somehow belong to ”being a part of the Free World”, it would disturb the relations with Russia (which are, up to now, mostly reasonably neighbourly), it would restrict the possibilities of Finnish politicians to mediate in conflict between other countries … . Altogether: Finland should NOT join.

To sum up the main reasons once more: in NATO the leading position is given to the USA, which consider themselves to be above any law and have in the past (especially under Republican presidents) shown clear criminal tendencies. But these things are by our media and our politicians treated as taboos, which makes a realistic public discussion about the NATO question already impossible. Considering in addition our politicians’ tendencies to be especially eager followers of some bigger unit’s (such as EU or USA) leadership, it becomes obvious that to join NATO would not mean anything good for either Finland or the world.