[Machine translation. My emphasis:]
Manifesto of social-liberalism of war
If the newspaper El País was "the collective intellectual of the Spanish transition," as defined by Gregorio Morán, the flagship of the Prisa group is now located and again in the geometric center where the wills and consensus of the current elite converge. If then the amnesty of the Francoists, the forgetfulness of their crimes, the opacity about the activities of Juan Carlos I, the official account of 23-F, or perhaps what we could define as the definitive closure of the transition - the 'yes' to remain in NATO in the 1986 referendum (making the same turn as the PSOE and Felipe González made), now El País is again as it was then. the best spokesman for the will of the Spanish and European elites; the will to step on the accelerator towards a war regime.
[Explanation: El País is a news corporation which has always promoted socdem PSOE, the same party which got Spain into NATO.]
It is well known that the president of the Prisa group, the Franco-Lebanese businessman Joseph Oughourlian, who controls the media group through his vulture fund Amber Capital, is also one of the main shareholders of the Spanish arms giant Indra. But that is not the only reason why El País is assiduous in the publication of reports and opinions favorable to rearmament. In addition to the obvious economic interests of its largest shareholder, Prisa's header has been interwoven in the very core of the Spanish power bloc for decades and responds as a well-tuned orchestra to its majority will. If Pedro Sánchez has carried out the largest increase in military spending in the history of democracy, if Germany regains compulsory military service, if the whole continent plays the drums of war and gives hundreds of billions of euros to the manufacturers of machines to kill, that is just what El País will defend because it is what it has always done. That is exactly his political role and not another: convincing the progressive electorate of what to make certain decisions completely opposed to their principles is inevitable or even somewhat sensible.
"Our armies would be paralyzed. Suddenly we'd be helpless. Ukraine would fall into Putin's hands. Leaving NATO would now be a terrible recklessness"
In this sense, the paper journalist Andrea Rizzi, in charge of global affairs of El País and member of its editorial board, published this Sunday, April 12, is framed. Rizzi's starting point is that NATO is touched [severely damaged]. In fact, he picks it up in the headline of the piece: "NATO is a zombie, Europe must assume it." Although Spanish media progress[ives], anchored in the old tics, likes to ridicule left-wing parties that, like Podemos, openly talk about leaving NATO, Rizzi demonstrates greater intelligence in this case, embracing what the vast majority of the Spanish people think, including the progressive bloc to which their newspaper is headed. "Macron declared NATO in a brain coma in 2019. Putin resurrected it in 2022 with the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, which gave the alliance a new raison d'étre and led to its expansion to Finland and Sweden. Now, Trump has placed her in an intermediate stage between life and death with her incessant public questioning," Rizzi writes. He knows that, if he starts criticizing Donald Trump and decreeing NATO's demise, the rest of the argument is going to go as a knife in the butter.
The next step is to say that Europeans are not prepared to leave NATO at the moment. "As is notorious, the United States has the capacity of command and joint control of the Alliance, the most credible nuclear umbrella, fundamental enabling media, satellite networks, precision weapon typologies that others do not reach. Europeans are not prepared to replace that in the short term. On the other hand, the United States remains fundamental in the defense of Ukraine because, although it no longer wants to offer help, it continues to supply key weaponry under purchase and, in addition, intelligence information essential for operations." Our armies would be paralyzed. Suddenly we'd be helpless. Ukraine would fall into Putin's hands. Leaving NATO now would be a terrible recklessness, Rizzi tells us.
But don't worry, progressive readers of El País. Our sagacious European leaders are implementing a sophisticated strategy to prepare for the exit. Moving forward in European military development and coordination as quickly as possible, keeping NATO alive as long as possible, explains Rizzi, which he has heard in the mouth of a relevant European politician. That is the strategy, dear friends: to build a fearsome European military power so that we can be prepared to leave NATO. What's the point?
To let the idea take shape in the reader, Rizzi then dedicates a few paragraphs to opening sideways and secondary pathways of reasoning. First, he says that the decision not to allow the use of bases for the war against Iran has generated a turn in U.S. leaders who saw NATO's usefulness and that that might, in the best way, should be rethought. He then explains that not only more needs to be spent but also increased coordination and interoperability, something that the different spokespersons of the rearmament really like repeat. It also takes the opportunity to introduce different schemes of political advancement, some led by a breakthrough of a few European countries, others carried out in a joint way. He welcomed Merz's opening a dialogue with France to consider an extension of the French nuclear umbrella. He recommends forging a transmission belt to take advantage of Ukraine's learning. Picote here and there, so we get a little distracted to the important part of the piece.
"What would we do if Putin attacked Estonia?, the author came to ask. Are we aware of Morocco's territorial ambitions? warns, without knowing whether it refers to a possible invasion of Ceuta and Melilla or the Canary Islands"
"It raises enormous doubts that 2.1% of GDP invested in defence on which the Spanish Government has planted is an appropriate level for Spain to contribute as it is for this European entrepreneurship. That is the spending objective agreed at the Alliance summit in 2014. Today's is another world. In addition, Spain reaches that level after decades of clamorous underinvestment. The Spanish Armed Forces must recover from a long time from very weak cows [thin cows = austerity] and at the same time make the leap towards this new world," writes Rizzi in the part of the article his boss likes most. It is essential that Europe has [must have] a much larger and much more powerful army. "What would we do if Putin attacked Estonia?", the author came to ask. "Are we aware of Morocco's territorial ambitions?", warns, without knowing whether it refers to a possible invasion of Ceuta and Melilla or the Canary Islands.
The argumental circle is thus closed. NATO is a zombie, but we cannot abandon it yet because that would be very dangerous for us. The only way we can abandon it at some point is to fiercely increase the European military power. **To do this, all countries have to do their homework and Spain, in particular, has to increase their military spending much more after having carried out the maximum increase in the history of democracy. **The European army is the most beautiful dream we can imagine, but it costs a lot of money and we have to accept it. That perhaps means that we will no longer be able to afford quality public health? That the tens of billions of euros of public money that will have to be spent on missiles and tanks could come very well to mitigate the housing crisis? It may be, but we have no choice. Putin wants to conquer Europe and NATO will stop serving us.
"Western Europeans have lived in a hiatus of history in which we spent a few decades guarding the violence of the politics of powers. The parenthesis is over. We have to assume it. European politicians have to explain it clearly to the citizenry, and act accordingly, abandoning short-sighted national interests and petty party interests," concludes the El País analyst in which he is perhaps one of the most rounded manifests of social-liberalism of war. It's good to read it two or three times because there's everything.
[End of article.]
A lot of guns and no butter.
Notice how corporate media interests = military-industrial interests.
I'm sharing this article because Pedro Sánchez is getting many fans internationally, but here on Lemmygrad we should never fall for succdem libshittery. One thing is critical, extremely critical support, and another is buying the BS. Same goes for Hillary Clinton's participation in the
April 18th Progressives' conference in Barcelona.