NATO Chief Unfit To Quote on Terror? - a podcast by Laura Flanders

Hi I’m Laura Flanders of GRITtv, for the Progressive Voices channel on Tune-In

It tells you something about what’s laughingly called the public debate, when the most dovish voice on the questions of terrorism and war comes from a leader of the military industrial complex.

Jens Stoltenberg is secretary general of NATO. He hasn’t appear in the US media in connection with the attacks in France, but he was there in Paris for the unity rally this month, and he was interviewed on the BBC soon after that.

To the BBC World Service he could be heard saying radical things like individual people should be held responsible for criminal acts, not groups.

Stoltenberg knows whereof he speaks. He was Prime Minister of Norway in 2011 when madman Anders Breivik killed 77 mostly teenagers in the deadliest attack in that country since World War II.

Instead of acting “tough” and calling for new powers to wage war, Stoltenberg at that time, called on Norwegians to quote: "counter blind hate with argument and education” . His words from then got a new life on social media this January.

On the BBC speaking about the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the kosher market, the NATO chief said crazy dove-ish things, like, “we have to distinguish between open debates and acts of violence."

He even implied there was a role for courts. “Criminal acts have to be prosecuted with means of police and bringing those responsible to justice…”

Clearly he didn’t get the memo about assassination drones.

When UN human rights chief Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, declined to call 9-11 an act of war, and suggested we capture and prosecute instead of summarily execute those responsible, she lost her post and her voice in the US media almost at once.

That's what I thought would happen to Stoltenberg. There's just no visible place for controversial views like these in the great free press we keep hearing about.

However, luckily for Stoltenberg, there is one way back into the US media’s good graces . Soon after the Paris unity rally, the new NATO chief announced NATO’s latest high-ticket boondoggle - an “ultra-rapid-reaction force, “ called “spearhead” and in speech in Berlin he stressed the need for members of the US-led alliance to bump up investments in security forces austerity be damned. You need to invest more, amid challenges such as jihadist group Islamic State or the Ukraine crisis he said. You could almost hear the military contractors salivate.

That did it. Within days, I could find half a dozen stories quoting the NATO Chief talking about that.

You can watch The Laura Flanders Show on LINKtv and TeleSUR, or subscribe to the audio podcast at GRITtv.org. This week, former Congressional candidate Chuck Pennachio tells us about the openings for single pager at the state level, and a leader of Greek Left Party Syriza tells us what a difference local networks of solidarity might make. To tell me what you think, write to: Laura@GRITtv.org.

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