The scripted interview made some comical errors on Stoltenberg’s part, which he might not have made if it was real, Martin Jay writes.
Can there be anything on the net right now, about the Ukraine war, more hilarious, disingenuous and darn right crackers than the “interview” between the Washington Post and the NATO secretary Jens Stoltenberg?
As a media event, it might not have appeared on your timeline, given that not ONE single western media outlet chose to write it up as a veritable news item in itself. The reason for this is that most editors smelt a rat and chose to ignore it.
The rat was simply that the interview was not really genuine and could be deemed by some as “fake news” given that the interview itself was not conducted in the classic sense of an interview. Stoltenberg did not sit down in front of the Post hack, face to face, and conduct the interview live. What was almost certainly the case, was that NATO press officers arranged with WaPo for the questions to be agreed beforehand; they may well have even written the questions themselves.
A clue to this is how limited and sterile the interview is when it sits on the page. When there are no follow up questions – and there were great opportunities for them – this normally is a giveaway that it was a PR exercise and as far removed from an “interview” and all that it entails as it possibly could be.
What was the thinking behind it? Possibly that Stoltenberg feels that he is going to be remembered for being a loving and loyal puppy to the Americans, in particular the Joe Biden administration which feeds him the talking points to almost everything he says – and that by the time October comes, when he stands down, Ukraine and its puppet in Kiev, will be in a far sorrier state than it is now. He’s preparing his legacy as he eases himself into the elitest enclave of central bank governor of Norway, complete with Bildenberg Club status thrown in for good measure. The mob which runs western elites have paid him off with a retirement plan for his undying loyalty – even at the price for looking somewhat idiotic at times with his change of policies, a good example being China.
Just three years ago Stoltenberg was talking about the Chinese as allies which the west needs to welcome. But Joe Biden had other plans, so the NATO script had to be re-written.
The Washington Post scripted interview made some comical errors on Stoltenberg’s part, which he might not have made if the interview was real, which gives another clue that his press chimps were the ones behind it.
On China, now he is completely on message with Biden as China is now the new threat which NATO will take on without looking, apparently, for new members in the East. Another reference to China was made when Stoltenberg talked about how much he has personally boosted NATO since 2014 to give it more money and members giving it a strength that Russia and China doesn’t have.
But the coin-operated robot of the so-called journalist didn’t respond with the obvious question “yes, but for how long will Russia and China remain behind NATO?”. Naddah. Follow up questions are not part of the email interview arrangement. Sorry.
In reality, with 19 new applicants to BRICS it might be that a new Eastern defence alliance might be put together before Stolters even takes his new office at the central bank in Oslo.
But his reference to 2014 is curious for two reasons. One, it blows out of the water the banal obsession with NATO’s claims that the war in Ukraine started in 2022 by an “unprovoked attack” by Russia. This narrative now is dismissed with one stroke of the pen. And secondly, it admits that the war itself started in 2014 where it is acknowledged by the NATO boss that the west started arming Ukraine to the teeth for, presumably, a conflict with Russia and certainly the objective of taking the Crimean peninsula which western elites consider to be the key to destroying Putin. No mention is made any further as he doesn’t wish to draw the reader to the nuances of the story of 2014 where the U.S. spent 5 bn dollars on meddling in an election and overthrowing Putin’s preferred incumbent leader. Or how utterly disingenuous the role played by the West over the Minsk agreements which even Merkel admitted were signed “simply to buy more time”.
This far into the article and the bullshit is really starting to stink. But there’s more. The humble reader may not have taken the trouble to google some of the claims but the one about “all NATO members agree that Ukraine should be a member” is stretching things a little far. Try “some” NATO members.
If it were a real interview, even the sycophant call centre journalist in the seat opposite him mighty have politely questioned this claim. But not in the la-la land of NATO fake news where we are led to believe that the earth is flat and that a certain brand of toothpaste really does whiten your teeth.
But most shocking of all was the admission, although hard to see, that the Ukraine war can no longer be won by the Ukraine army. Look closely and see how the narrative from Stoltenberg’s press people has been scaled back. Apparently, these days all that NATO is hoping for now in the war, is that Ukraine “prevails”. In other words, keeps the ground that it has and sustains more and more rocket attacks on its water works, power stations and cities. Day after day. Week after week. Forever.
If that was the biggest gag there was, there was always the claim that NATO’s role is to apparently de-escalate the war. Yes, you read correctly. De-escalate. At this point, the reader is left wondering if our man has been sharing the same Colombian Panadol Extra that Zelensky is snorting. Expect a gobshite vanity publishing autobiography in the book shops before Christmas on the NATO boss’s three terms and his achievements entitled “NATO – my life, my wank, my shit” with an endearing full-size photo of our Jens stretching from cover to cover. You can’t make this shit up but we can be sure he will.
