© www.theguardian.comContentious or pretentious or one of each?
, Sen. Bernie Sanders said during the Democratic debate in Brooklyn, adding that the
US alone spends "about 75% of the entire cost of the military aspect of NATO."Sanders, 74 and Hillary Clinton, 68, held their
ninth presidential debate in Brooklyn, and the US senator from Vermont asked to react to a statement he made in 1997 when he said that the
US should stop "wasting tens of billions of dollars helping to defend Europe.""If my memory is correct here, we spend about 75 percent of the entire cost of the military aspect of NATO," Sanders said. "Given the fact that France has a very good health care system and free public education, college education for their people, the UK has a good National Health Service and they also provide fairly reasonable higher education,
you know what, yeah, I do believe that the countries of Europe should pick up more of the burden for their defense," he stated, noting that "with a huge deficit, with 47 million people living in poverty, with our inner cities collapsing, yeah, I do think countries like Germany and UK and France and European countries whose economy, or at least its standard of living and health care and education, they're doing pretty well."
America's longest-serving independent politician in history added:
"I would not be embarrassed as president of the United States to say to our European allies, you know what, the United States of America cannot just support your economies. You got to put up your own fair share of the defense burden."The issue of US covering much of NATO expenses has been a point of tension for
decades.
Hillary Clinton said she fully supported what she described as America's "continuing involvement in NATO," adding that
"it is important to ask for our NATO allies to pay more of the cost," however. She invested all of her energy in praising NATO calling it
"the most successful military alliance in probably human history." Yet the former secretary of state said Europeans should be paying more. "But that doesn't mean if they don't we leave, because I don't think that's in America's interests," Clinton said. When asked what she would do as commander-in-chief if the countries in the alliance refused to pay more, Clinton replied without hesitation:
"I will stay in NATO."
Comment: NATO is a co-dependent state union and by demanding it pay for itself, the US reinforces the fantasy of a coalition. In reality NATO is the US' first proxy layer and self-serving validator.
The straw man version of Russian "intentions" heightens fear and subsequent leverage to get NATO to support US hegemony. In a case of when tools play tools, it's locking onto whatever scares the target the most and repeating the threat over and over again to move it to the intended action. "In your face Russia" is a ploy to remind everyone that the US and NATO are "on duty and have usefulness," probably something the war-worn world could better do without.