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Europe's problems are self-inflicted—not caused by China or Russia, new US Vice President JD Vance told a shocked audience yesterday.
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"The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor," he told European leaders at the Munich Security Conference.
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"What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values: values shared with the United States of America."
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END OF DEMOCRACY
If you can cancel an election because the people voted for the "wrong" candidate, or create rules that disqualify popular parties, that's not democracy, he told his stunned audience in Germany.
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He was referring to a spate of instances in which ruling powers in the EU manipulated polls (in places such as Moldova, Georgia and Romania), or (in other countries including France and Germany) worked to exclude the most popular parties.
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"I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election," Vance said. "He warned that if things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too."
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He suggested Europeans were "running in fear of your own voters". This statement was rather sweeping, since it covered such a wide range of cases.
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In some places, the elite were trying to keep far-right parties at bay. In others, such as Romania and Moldova, the rulers were fear-mongering to grab increased power for the EU by labelling all popular opposition candidates as "pro-Kremlin".
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FINANCED BY THE U.S.
Ironically, many of these underhand campaigns were based on claims issued by intelligence agents from the US-led Five Eyes group, or part-financed by American funders such as the notorious National Endowment for Democracy, and/ or George Soros' Open Societies Foundation.
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Vance, amusingly, told the Europeans to stop acting on "flimsy suspicions" spread by intelligence agents.
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"Now, we’re at the point, of course, that the situation has gotten so bad that this December, Romania straight up cancelled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its [European] continental neighbours," he said.
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"Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections. But I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage, even.
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"But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with."
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IT'S A 'COMEDY'
Perhaps the most extraordinary part of the speech was Vance's admission that the US was ALSO the source of trouble. "Free speech, I fear, is in retreat," he said.
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"And in the interests of comedy, my friends, but also in the interest of truth, I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe, but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation," Vance said.
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THE RIGHT TO PRAY AT HOME
Vance scolded the UK and European nations on their suppression of free speech and harsh attitude to faith groups. One example he gave was about the right of ordinary people to pray.
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A letter given to people whose homes were within 200 meters of abortion clinics in Scotland warned that they may be committing a criminal offence if they "recklessly" prayed out loud at home, and the sound was audible to passers-by.
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This was immediately dismissed as "fake news" in "live" commentaries by the media, but research shows that the letter exists.
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The letter says: "Activities in a private place (such as a house) within the area between the protected premises and the boundary of a zone could be an offence if they can be seen or heard within the zone and are done intentionally or recklessly."
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FRENZY OF FACT-CHECKING
And Europe was just as bad, Vance thundered. "I look to Brussels, where EU Commission commissars warned citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest," he said.
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Most of the European and UK media quickly fought back this morning with a frenzy of factchecking by going through his examples and labelling each one as lies or fake news.
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THE WEST IS SPLIT
But that's missing the point. What was important about the speech was not the relative accuracy level of each of the claims, but what the speech as a whole reveals: a major split in the west.
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Up to now, Europe has been controlled by leaders rigidly loyal to the US, and who followed the dictates of the major lobbies in the so-called swamp, led by arms-makers, even when it harmed their own citizens.
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All 27 countries in the EU have obediently diverted more public cash to weapons-sellers, despite the fact that literally no one is threatening to invade them at all (unless you believe the Daily Telegraph, in which case Russia, which struggled to take a small piece of penniless Ukraine, will easily conquer the entire west).
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And right up until recent months, the European elite welcomed NED and Soros units to meddle in elections, while the Guardian, Times, and virtually all mainstream newspapers hid that story, and printed the opposite, with lengthy fear-mongering articles saying the Russians were meddling. Reds under the beds!
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FUNDING FOR NED HAS BEEN CUT
But now that's changed. The new leaders of the US have been reviled for many of their actions, but to their credit they have cut funding for NED, (surely to the relief of countries around the world).
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And - again this is comedy - they are scolding the UK and Europe for their lack of independence from the US.
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In other words, Vance yesterday slammed UK and EU leaders for following the lead of previous US leaders on how they behaved and what they spent their money on—while simultaneously demanding that they now divert even more public money to weapons-makers, most of whom are based in the US.
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Clearly, there's a lack of logic there. But this is coming from a Trump administration leader. It's a fool's game to look for logic. Instead, we are better off reviewing the barrage of statements and accusations, and then working to recognize the key takeaway.
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It is this: There's a split in the western powers. The odds that humanity may achieve a genuinely multi-polar world has increased. |
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雷达卡
楼主
显身卡
发表于 2025-2-16 20:48:56
