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NYT reportage is being affected by a big solar storm!

Posted by: chipnikh | Oct 9 2015 9:15 utc | 3

1. Not the biggest military challenge NATO has faced since the Cold War. What about the Balkans, the Iraq invasions, Afghanistan?
2. A weakened NATO. How has NATO been weakened? More members and more arms flooding into new member countries – how is that weakened?
3. alliance’s principle of collective defence? It’s collective principle is to attack other countries for their self-interest and keep Russia isolated even after the collapse of the USSR and the collapse of its economy.
4. Several Russian missiles fell short in Iran? Unsourced conjecture, no proof.
5. Not wanting to inflame the situation? NATO is inflaming by sending in more ‘advisers’ and weapons into Turkey and Eastern Europe.
6. Biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the Cold War? As if getting all those former satellites of the USSR into your alliance isn’t the biggest reinforcement of all?
7. There is no Russian aggression or provocation in Eastern Europe. Russia is not going to invade Eastern Europe.
8. Who can say what Putin is thinking? These a**holes are too dumb to realize that Russia is signaling its military capacity. Got the message yet?
9. Russian maneuvres in Turkish airspace could invite a response? Depends on where you define Turkish airspace – is it the border or a buffer zone in Syria? Or are you going to cry about a Russian fighter than went over for a few seconds on approach to land?
10. Russian targeting Islamic militants on the pretext of supporting Assad. NATO is lying when it states that some militants are warm and cuddly while others are the only bad. Even the warm and cuddly ones implement twisted Islamic rules in the areas they govern. And Russia has said all along that the Assad government is the legitimate government of Syria and will work with it to fight all Islamic militants to keep Syria secular.
11. ‘When Russia attacks those fighting Islamic state, that strengthens Islamic State’. Total rubbish. There’s little difference between the different Islamic groups in terms of ideology, they are all supplied militarily by NATO and the Gulfies. The attacks on IS by the US for the last year have been half-hearted and ineffective because the US wants to continue the cruel game to so degrade the Syrian society, economy, state and people so that all their Islamic allies can take over, create sectarian statelets that will leave no resistance to Saudi/Israeli hegemony.
So, 11 lies.

Posted by: Caro | Oct 9 2015 9:32 utc | 5

The phrases “biggest military challenge” vs “end of the Cold War” are totally contradictory. You can’t have it both. Also, Russia is not interested in testing anything concerning NATO, but only to protect its interests in any front.
The rest of the phrase is not false in essence that NATO’s main target is to crush Russia (and China), and the three main reasons that is not doing it right now is that
1st NATO is indeed weak and the alliance’s credibility is indeed in a very low level.
2nd It needs Russia and even Iran to do the “dirty work” to eliminate the Jihadist disaster which was created by the US deep state and now it’s out of control, bringing another chaotic situation in Middle East.
3rd US indirect aggression against China lately, a stupid strategy by the neocon agenda, brought China closer to Russia, building an even stronger alliance between them. They both now in a race of developing further their nuclear arsenals and this is a key deterrent which prevents NATO to confront them openly.

Posted by: nmb | Oct 9 2015 9:42 utc | 7

Three lies in 58 words, as #2 identified.
What’s with the introduction of the term “flank”? Very WWII, very carefully selected.

Posted by: jayc | Oct 9 2015 9:47 utc | 9

I think that the “biggest military challenge” part, might actually be true. I cannot remember any NATO member being military threatened (at home where treaty rules apply) in any way (by an non NATO country that is), since the end of the cold war. So, a brief intrusion into Turkish airspace by a Russian jet, is the biggest challenge NATO faced since the end of the cold war. NATO is a defensive alliance, so staring wars doesn’t count.
I might be wrong though.
/sarcasm

Posted by: Erlindur | Oct 9 2015 9:56 utc | 11

Tested by Russia in Syria
The article uses the history of NATO as the backdrop, especially the history of NATO during and after the Cold War. NATO wasn’t formed to protect Western interests in the Middle East — that’s a post Cold War convention to keep NATO relevant and viable a bit longer. So no, historically speaking since the article uses history to bolster its case, Russia is not testing NATO in Syria. Russia is testing itself in Syria. A better name for the article is:
Is it time to dismantle NATO?
I think it is.
Also, of interesting note is how many “commentators” here didn’t make one single disparaging comment about my mention of, and my link to, the Western mercenary Matthew VanDyke. It was a purposeful trial balloon, and the lack of disparaging responses tells me it’s not Russians commenting to this forum so much as it’s CIA and NSA masquerading as Russians, hence their reluctance to denigrate one of their own at someone else’s prompting. The only reason I can think the CIA and the NSA would be doing this in this comment section is to undermine b’s credibility as a bulldog analyst and to create a honeypot in the comment section to out potential terrorists/traitors. I’ve mentioned this at my blog, but I’ll state it here as well. I’m not an advocate of the death penalty, but so long as it’s still practiced in America, agents who engage in this activity and those who issue the orders for agents to engage in this activity are worthy of the death penalty. Their behavior is as evil, or maybe even more evil than, the behavior of those who traditionally receive such sentences precisely because they thwart free expression by betraying the public trust. They are psychopaths with complete disregard for the law and democracy.

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Oct 9 2015 10:55 utc | 13

mentioned, that is

Posted by: john | Oct 9 2015 11:08 utc | 15

0 (zero)

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 9 2015 11:43 utc | 17

“Confronted with its biggest military challenge since the end of the Cold War,”
Demonstrably false, since NATO hasn’t invoked Article 5, whereas it did following the 9/11 attacks.
“a weakened NATO”
How so? From what baseline? The end of the Cold War? Clearly a falsehood.
“took steps Thursday”
NATO did nothing but talk. And Talkin’ Ain’t Doin’.
“to shore up its flanks, both in the Middle East and Europe,”
NATO doesn’t have a “flank” in the Middle East. Clearly false.
“as Russia continued to test the credibility of the alliance’s bedrock principle of collective defense.”
Russia isn’t “attacking” any NATO country, nor is it operating “inside” any NATO territory, both of which are preconditions for the application of that “bedrock principle”.
So that “bedrock principle” is not being “tested”. Clearly false.
So I can spot “five”, which I’ll put forward as my answer – but in all probability the correct answer is “58”.

Posted by: Yeah, Right | Oct 9 2015 12:12 utc | 19

Biggest issue is the flanks of NATO do not belong in the Middle East. Never have and never will. The North Atlantic Treaty does not include Syria or any ME country.
The other BS issues are:
– It strengthened and not weakened
– Hitting (NATO) rebels does not test NATO unless NATO officially recognises the proxy army
– Russia is the one that is being tested and confronted
– The other thing being tested is peoples intelligence. The wheat is being separated from the chaff.

Posted by: Sam.D (AntiNWO) | Oct 9 2015 12:28 utc | 21

That photo is an umbrella blown inside out. For 15 years they have been saying..”Don’t forget 9/11 and AlQaeda, now they are saying forget 9/11 AlQaeda are now our allies. Those three NATO loons are waiting and watching for thousands of Russian tanks breaking through both flanks of the Fulda Gap. What we have here is the US loss of the middle east. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of jerks.

Posted by: harry law | Oct 9 2015 13:31 utc | 23

A last remark: note how the article mentions and mixes in Ukraine and Syria, to make out that Russia is attacking virtous democracies, kiddies and old ladies, all over the globe. It adds in the Baltics to reinforce that impression. The Russians are attacking ALL over the place! In fact, the three (Syria, Ukr. and the Baltics) are completely different cases, with nothing happening in the Baltics, and Russia deliberately refraining from intervening in the Donbass (except with humanitaian aid and covert support.)

Posted by: Noirette | Oct 9 2015 14:33 utc | 25

Um, I make it twelve:
1) “NATO” (an organization which should no longer exist.)
2) “Tested by Russia” (Russia has not been testing NATO but upholding international law.)
3) “In Syria” (How does NATO even if its existence be acknowledged, have a role in Syria?)
4) “Raises its Guard” (It is not NATO which is being fought against by the Syrian government in Syria. No need for any guard-raising.)
5) “and its Tone” (chuckling quietly.)
6) “Brussels” (Another very curious power center as to its legitimacy.)
7) “Confronted with its biggest military challenge since the end of the Cold War” (Maybe biggest challenge to its right to exist, but military? Nah.)
8) “a weakened NATO” (Hmm. This does have some truthiness about it, hopefully, but not for the reasons stated.)
9) ” took steps Thursday to shore up its flanks” (It’s flanks? Come now.)
10)”both in the Middle East and Europe” (Wow. Those are impressive flanks. Encompassing small islands in the China Sea?)
11)”as Russia continued to test” (Oh that Russia, NATO on the brain; poor NATO, just trying to stay alive. I didn’t realize NATO was an actual sovereign state under constant threat from terrorists invading its territory.)
12) “the credibility of the alliance’s bedrock principle of collective defense.” (Oh. Assad is attacking a NATO country? Or, Assad is not letting NATO countries attack his country? Or, Assad is not letting terrorists supplied by NATO countries attack his country? Or, Russia is not letting terrorists supplied by NATO countries attack the civilians of Syria and behead them or otherwise kill, maim and enslave them – and that’s bad because . . .reductio ad absurdum.)

Posted by: juliania | Oct 9 2015 14:58 utc | 27

Yeah, Right | 19

“Confronted with its biggest military challenge since the end of the Cold War,”
Demonstrably false, since NATO hasn’t invoked Article 5, whereas it did following the 9/11 attacks.

Yeah, that beats my list (No.8). I simply forgot about this self infliction and cede you with pleasure my rank, even though you missed to take “weakened NATO” off the list. NATO is weakened after this invocation that became challenged by Germany and France, was made dispensable for the Afghan war, useless for the Iraq war, and has caused an extra loss of life in Madrid and London. I wonder, whether the Euro had become fiat-money in 2002 without Art. 5 invokation in 2001.
It is also at the roots of the crucial vote in North Atlantic Council 2008, when Germany and France opposed Ukraine membership.

Posted by: TomGard | Oct 9 2015 15:20 utc | 29

@30 typo
That should be Ukraine is NOT a member of NATO.

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 9 2015 15:44 utc | 31

If I look at each individual word I count at least 15. Or 1… the entirety of the thing.
What will NYT do to top this on Halloween?

Posted by: Eureka Springs | Oct 9 2015 16:00 utc | 33

“NATO, Being check Mated by Russia in Syria, Raises Its Enmity and Its Verbiage
BRUSSELS — Impatient for another post Cold War gory military challenge, NATO on steroids took steps Thursday to further beef up its military bases, both in the Middle East and Europe, as Russia exposed the ISIS racket and the alliance’s bedrock principle of nation destruction.”
…I couldn’t find any factual error, are you sure there are?!?

Posted by: Maude | Oct 9 2015 19:26 utc | 35

Trying to count all the errors in that poorly written NYT statement is like trying to count the number of angels sitting on a pin.
NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The only Middle Eastern country that is a member of NATO is Turkey. Is NATO courting new members in northern Africa and western Asia? Since when did Brussels become NATO’s headquarters? Doesn’t the NYT writer know the difference between the European Union and NATO? From the way the writer refers to “flanks” (usually the sides of an animal) in “both” the Middle East and Europe, you would think the leading nation in NATO is Germany or Poland.
NATO formed to defend its members against the Soviet Union and its allies in eastern Europe. The USSR is history and its allies in eastern Europe are now members of NATO. NATO is hardly weak.
The Cold War never really ended, even after the dissolution of the USSR. The US kept it going by expanding NATO membership in eastern Europe and helping to dismember Yugoslavia.
What military challenges? All the military challenges made after 1991 have been made by NATO members themselves in expanding right to the borders of Russia, in threatening and invading Iraq, Libya and Syria, and threatening China and North Korea through proxies in Japan and South Korea.
Russia is not testing NATO’s credibility, only NATO is testing its own credibility by abusing Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. Turkey’s interpretation of where its territory begins and ends should not be allowed to pass.
Finally, isn’t the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, with the collapse of the Ukrainian economy and the Donbass war, and politics dominated by oligarchs and fascists, a bigger headache for NATO (because the majority of NATO members are also European Union members) than Syria?

Posted by: Jen | Oct 9 2015 20:43 utc | 37

I can’t improve on the error counting so far, folks. Great work — along with the astute commentaries. Sheesh!! It’s getting to the point where I find that the bulk of my geopolitical enlightenment comes from highly informed commenters (and articles, b) on quality altmedia sites such as MOA. Thanks!!
As far as the above comment #39 on the U.S.’s napalm use in Vietnam . . . may I also add the use of Agent Orange in Vienam, depleted uranium in the Gulf Wars, Hellfire missiles and the infamous “double tap” technique used on civilians (wedding parties, in particular) all over the ME, and the war crime of using U.S.-supplied white phosphorous (WP) by our “allies” in Tel Aviv and Kiev. I’m sure there’s more evil afoot.

Posted by: Eddie Slovik | Oct 10 2015 3:40 utc | 39

@Andoheb, 39, and Eddie Slovik, 40:
The US used napalm in Korea, “the forgotten war,” before doing so in Vietnam, including use of the “double tap” technique. As General Curtis LeMay openly boasted, of the approximately 10 million people in North Korea at the time, over 2 million were killed, primarily through napalm bombardment. Even though the following article’s title focuses on threats to use nuclear weapons, for its first half it concisely exposes that this particular evil has been afoot years longer than many realize:
Korea: forgotten nuclear threats

Napalm was invented at the end of the second world war. It became a major issue during the Vietnam war, brought to prominence by horrific photos of injured civilians. Yet far more napalm was dropped on Korea and with much more devastating effect, since the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) had many more populous cities and urban industrial installations than North Vietnam…..
One of the first orders to burn towns and villages that I found in the archives was in the far southeast of Korea, during heavy fighting along the Pusan Perimeter in August 1950, when US soldiers were bedeviled by thousands of guerrillas in rear areas. On 6 August a US officer requested “to have the following towns obliterated” by the air force: Chongsong, Chinbo and Kusu-dong. B-29 strategic bombers were also called in for tactical bombing. On 16 August five groups of B-29s hit a rectangular area near the front, with many towns and villages, creating an ocean of fire with hundreds of tons of napalm. Another call went out on the 20 August. On 26 August I found in this same source the single entry: “fired 11 villages”. Pilots were told to bomb targets that they could see to avoid hitting civilians, but they frequently bombed major population centres by radar, or dumped huge amounts of napalm on secondary targets when the primary one was unavailable….
Air force sources delighted in this relatively new weapon, joking about communist protests and misleading the press about their “precision bombing”. They also liked to point out that civilians were warned of the approaching bombers by leaflet, although all pilots knew that these were ineffective. This was a mere prelude to the obliteration of most North Korean towns and cities after China entered the war….
On 8 November 1950, 79 B-29s dropped 550 tons of incendiaries on Sinuiju, “removing [it] from off the map”. A week later Hoeryong was napalmed “to burn out the place”. By 25 November “a large part of [the] North West area between Yalu River and south to enemy lines is more or less burning”; soon the area would be a “wilderness of scorched earth”.
This happened before the major Sino-Korean offensive that cleared northern Korea of United Nations forces. When that began, the US air force hit Pyongyang with 700 500-pound bombs on 14-15 December; napalm dropped from Mustang fighters, with 175 tons of delayed-fuse demolition bombs, which landed with a thud and then blew up when people were trying to retrieve the dead from the napalm fires….
North Koreans tell you that for three years they faced a daily threat of being burned with napalm: “You couldn’t escape it,” one told me in 1981. By 1952 just about everything in northern and central Korea had been completely leveled. What was left of the population survived in caves….
Even Winston Churchill, late in the war, was moved to tell Washington that when napalm was invented, no one contemplated that it would be “splashed” all over a civilian population.
This was Korea, “the limited war”. The views of its architect, Curtis LeMay, serve as its epitaph. After it started, he said: “We slipped a note kind of under the door into the Pentagon and said let us go up there . . . and burn down five of the biggest towns in North Korea – and they’re not very big – and that ought to stop it. Well, the answer to that was four or five screams – ‘You’ll kill a lot of non-combatants’ and ‘It’s too horrible’. Yet over a period of three years or so . . . we burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea, too . . . Now, over a period of three years this is palatable, but to kill a few people to stop this from happening – a lot of people can’t stomach it”

Posted by: Vintage Red | Oct 11 2015 17:31 utc | 41