This Is NOT Sparta As Greece Threatens To Partially Withdraw From NATO Citing Poverty

ZeroHedge ^ | 09/23/2011 | Tyler Durden

[SeekAndFind]

In what is a pathetic attempt at Mutual Assured Destruction only in this case is Virtual Assured Suicide, Athens News reports that Greece, in order to demonstrate just how "serious" its fiscal condition is, will slash its defense spending in the form of support for NATO, thereby destabilizing the region even as Turkey and Syria are already on the verge of way: a development which NATO will surely be delighted by.

"Greece will significantly reduce its participation in Nato and EU military missions due to the economic crisis in the country, National Defesce Minister Panos Beglitis announced on the sidelines of an informal EU defence ministers' Council held here on Friday. He said that the ministry was preparing to cut down Greece's participation in the Nato and EU missions in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Somalia, noting that local political forces in Afghanistan and Kosovo were anyway entering the phase where they would gradually take over control."

So instead of going ahead and doing any of the austerity stuff Greece promise to enact back in 2010, which has been sacrificially pushed forward from 2015 to 2014, pretty much like what the US will need to do soon to avoid more downgrades when the next debt ceiling hike is due in a year, it will instead pack up and leave, most likely giving Turkey the impression it can do whatever it wants in the region, and why not: after all the third coming of the Ottoman Empire has been long in the making.

From Athens News:

Beglitis made it clear, however, that Greece would not withdraw entirely and will continue to maintain a small presence as long as the international missions continued to exist.

 

The ministers' council, held to prepare for the regular council in November in Brussels, mainly carried out a review of developments in the operations in Libya. Among the central issues was the need to reduce armaments spending due to the economic crisis sweeping across Europe.

 

The ministers did not discuss the tension created in the southeastern Mediterranean by Turkey's stance toward exploratory drilling for natural gas in Cyprus' Exclusive Economic Zone. The issue is expected to be discussed at the Nato ministers' meeting in Brussels in early October.

Our only question is whether this idea came from Greece or the Troika, which will need this preemptive false flag to justify ongoing disbursements of bailout money to Greece if it wishes to preserve the euro.

[PGR88]

It would be a good thing. NATO´s mission was over 20 years ago, and like many bureaucracies, it will never put itself out of business. So instead it decided to expand to cover the defense of 35+ nations.

If NATO didn´t exist today, no one would think to invent it.

Think of Fannie and Freddie, but in the business of war. It won´t end well.

[Spirochete]

I hope they carry out their "threat". In fact, I hope all the NATO members leave that useless and obsolete alliance.

The only combat operations it has ever carried out were/are on behalf of muslims.

[Buggman]

These days the Greeks only say "Molon labe!" to those trying to cut back their government benefits.

Shalom

[SMARTY]

“...it will instead pack up and leave, most likely giving Turkey the impression it can do whatever it wants in the region, and why not: after all the third coming of the Ottoman Empire has been long in the making.”

THAT’S when the Greeks, those arch, premier ‘I hate America’, creeps will come begging us to save their skins. Some things never change.

[StormEye]

And why should Greece or any NATO country spend much on their own defense when America is willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and sacrifice its own citizens in their defense? The game is to keep playing Uncle Sam for Uncle Sucker.

[SaraJohnson]

We get to be the military of the “free world.” That will be inclusive of Muslim Islamic Nations in time. Too bad there is not a homo country we can’t die for...oh wait.

[JerseyanExile]

well, this does make sense in a way. Historically, Greece has had a very large military in proportion to their economy and population due to their long running cold war with Turkey. The thing is, they couldn’t afford it - this military force was subsidized by the US and NATO, and as soon as the Col War ended, Greece was no longer of strategic importance, and the well went dry. Historically, Greece has spent immense amounts of funds on their military, in fact I think it was something like 7% of their GDP, in order to try and stay equal in power to the much larger and economically powerful nation of Turkey.

So, with their economy in shambles, and without any more foreign backers, it is understandable that their military will have to shrink in size due to a lack of available funding.

[blueunicorn6]

“Yes, this is NATO headquarters. We’re getting ready to send out another peacekeeping mission and we were wondering if we could count on Greece’s support?......I’m sorry, did you say you’ll donate three sheep and a can of olives?........oh, good, I thought I didn’t hear that right........you’ll sell us three sheep and a can of olives.......how much?........that much!.......how much for just the sheep?”

[allmendream]

[allmendream]

[DarkWaters]

Or more like Uncle Sugar.

[mewzilla]

More money from the IMF and the Fed to bail out the ECB and the Eurozone. The amounts make Solyndra look like chump change.

[DarkWaters]

Well considering the Fed printed up 16.3 trillion dollars to bail out the banking system in 2008 (over 5 of that went to overseas banks), yea they no doubt are expecting it. Probably will receive it too and this time it will be at least double that 16.3 trillion figure. And here the stooges in congress were telling use we need to pass the almost $800 billion dollar bail out bill to save the banking system that only turned out to be a slush fund. Its good to be king but it truly sucks for us ‘peasants’. Well we might not be peasants yet but that's how they see us.