NATO chief concedes Trump has a point lol

 Stoltenberg knows damn well he might have to deal with Trump again if he's elected in November, and isn't about to alienate him now. After the election and Trump loses? Yeah, maybe then, but not now.

Reported here:

NATO chief concedes 'valid point' of spending criticism as allies up defense budgets

---

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

Susana Vera | Reuters

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg conceded to criticism that some members have been underfinancing the coalition’s defense budget, saying he expects a record 18 allies to meet their military spending goal this year.

His comments come on the footsteps of the controversial remarks of former U.S. president and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who said he would not protect NATO nations from Russian hostilities if they fall behind on their membership payments.

Trump’s statements kindled widespread ire from the international community, including from fellow Republicans, drawing Stoltenberg to earlier this week accuse that such a suggestion “undermines all our security.”

“The criticism that you hear is not primarily about NATO, it’s about NATO allies not spending enough on NATO. And that’s a valid point,” Stoltenberg said during a press briefing on Wednesday, in response to a question on whether Trump’s comments aligned with the broader views of Republican officials that the NATO chief has engaged.

“It’s a point and a message that has been conveyed by successive U.S. administrations that European allies and Canada have to spend more, because we haven’t seen fair burden sharing in the alliance,” Stoltenberg added. “The good news is that this is exactly what NATO allies are now doing.”

Turkey is not an honest player, whether as a member of NATO or in the fight against ISIS, funneling extremists to Syria

From The New York Times, here:

"Turkey wants Mr. Assad gone, and has allowed its border with Syria to be an easy crossing point for Syrian rebels, including those the West regards as terrorists or radical Islamists; Russia wants to prop up Mr. Assad and his government. While Moscow says it is attacking the Islamic State, for the most part Russian planes and troops have been attacking the Syrian rebels, some of whom are supported by the United States and the West, who most threaten Mr. Assad’s rule."

Obama is a complete hypocrite defending Turkey's right to secure its border against air incursions by Russia. Turkey's border is deliberately porous, feeding fighter after fighter into the flames of the conflict. Turkey is a main point of entry for ISIS volunteers.

No wonder it appears to Putin that the whole of NATO is in support of ISIS.

And to others it will appear to be a grand anti-Semitic conspiracy orchestrated by a pro-Islamic American president, with the notorious Jens Stoltenberg at the helm of NATO defending Turkey's downing of the Russian SU-24:

"At a huge demonstration in central Oslo to protest Israel's independence on April 20, 2002, former Labor Party prime minister Jens Stoltenberg addressed pro-Palestinian groups waving Nazi flags. Without blinking, he endorsed their cause. 'There is one occupant, and one occupier,' he told them."

Obama is derelict in his duty, snubs new head of NATO

And the irony is Norway's Stoltenberg hates Israel as much as Obama does. Maybe Stoltenberg is too much of a right wing socialist for Obama.

Reported here by Josh Rogin:

"President Barack Obama has yet to meet with the new head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and won't see Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg this week, even though he is in Washington for three days.  Stoltenberg’s office requested a meeting with Obama well in advance of the visit, but never heard anything from the White House, two sources close to the NATO chief told me." 

Establishing a Motive for the Norway Shooter's Crimes

The motive appears to be a political response to left-wing anti-Semitism, if the details of the alleged shooter's biography reported widely are accurate.

The bombing in the land of Quisling looks like an elaborate diversion designed to provide cover for the real operation, which was to murder as many members as possible of the youth arm of the left-wing, anti-Israel Norwegian Labor Party, being groomed at their summer camp for future service:

The Workers' Youth League (Bokmål: Arbeidernes Ungdomsfylking, Nynorsk: Arbeidaranes Ungdomsfylking, or AUF) is the youth organization affiliated with the Norwegian Labour Party.

AUF was formed in April 1927, following the merger of Left Communist Youth League and Socialist Youth League of Norway. It's [sic] ideology is social democracy and democratic socialism. The current leader is Eskil Pedersen. Many former leading figures in AUF have gone on to serve in significant positions in government, such as the incumbent Prime Minister of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg.

A survivor of the shooting explains what all those kids were doing on that island where the murders occurred:

What can I say? The last normal thought in my head was about the AUF´s organization of students. I had just been to a political workshop (that´s what we do at Utøya) – and was on my way up tp [sic] the AUF-shop where I was going to take a shift. ...

Blowing up important buildings in Oslo and killing the future politicians of the Arbeider-party (ed. AP) who are attending summercamp at Utøya. What wrong have we done?

Those who resort to violence have run out of arguments. How could he do this to my AUF-friends? It seems so surrealistic. I don´t understand. I can´t comprehend.

She doesn't understand because she has been taught not to. This formal, political indoctrination of the young is designed to pave the way for the strident, anti-Semitic views of the Norwegian Labor Party, as detailed here, here, here, here and here. Which goes far to explain what could possibly motivate an extremist fanatic of the opposite persuasion, equally misguided, in this case a loner with delusions of grandeur.

[A] young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time, but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit.

-- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.3, here

Breivik's Target at Utoya, Gro Harlem Brundtland, A Long-Time Norwegian Anti-Semite

From Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America by Kenneth R. Timmerman (2004):

"The Nazi references emerge frequently and easily in today's Norway, and they are directed mainly at Israel, but also at the United States. At a huge demonstration in central Oslo to protest Israel's independence on April 20, 2002, former Labor Party prime minister Jens Stoltenberg addressed pro-Palestinian groups waving Nazi flags. Without blinking, he endorsed their cause. 'There is one occupant, and one occupier,' he told them. (It was his party, under the leadership of Gro Harlem Brundtland and Foreign Minister Johan Holst, that oversaw the Oslo Declaration of Principles in September 1993.) The former leader of the center-left Center Party, Gunnar Stalsett, now the state-appointed Lutheran bishop of Oslo, addressed a crowd of anti-Israeli demonstrators waving Nazi flags on April 6, 2002. 'He asked that they pull down the swastikas before he spoke,' an Israeli diplomat in Oslo told me. When the crowd kept on waving them, he spoke anyway. ...

"Anti-Israel demonstrations and Israeli 'misdeeds' in the West Bank and Gaza get extensive coverage in a Norwegian press whose brazen anti-Semitism goes way beyond any tolerable expresssion of a political disagreement with Israel. For years, Norwegian reporters and cartoonists have compared Israel to Hitler's Third Reich and have used classical anti-Semitic themes that arguably should be outlawed under Norway's 1975 hate crimes legislation." (pp. 239f)

"Labor Party heavyweights began traveling to Lebanon to pay homage to Arafat. Among them were Thorvald Stoltenberg, the future foreign minister, and Gro Harlem Brundtland. Although she was older than the 1968 generation radicals, Brundtland took them under her wing. Under her leadership, many of the former Socialist Left Party activists joined the Labor Party. She promoted them to the party leadership, while adopting their anti-Israel agenda. In April 1983, when Brundtland headed the Association of Scandinavian Labor Parties, she invited Arafat to visit Stockholm. It was a major diplomatic coup that broadened his support in Europe. After an eight-month initial stint as prime minister in 1981, Brundtland twice returned to power, from May 1986 to October 1989 and, again, from September 1990 to October 1996, when Oslo was negotiated and implemented.

"One of the former Socialist Left Party activists promoted by Brundtland was Einar Foerde, who eventually became head of the Norwegian National Broadcasting Company. Until his retirement in 2001, "Foerde continued the tradition of picking key persons who shared his political views and placing them throughout the NRK," says Jan Gregersen. Another hard-leftist Brundtland brought into the Labor Party fold was Terje Roed-Larsen, the anti-Israel Communist from the Palestinian Front." (p. 245)