US Commander in Europe: We Need More Troops to Fight The Russians
The US European Commander wants more US troops in Europe "to deter Russian aggression." Meanwhile, Poland is offering the US $2 billion to build a permanent US base on its territory. And the US is moving 2,500 new tanks and fighting vehicles into Europe. Does Russia really want to invade Europe? Or is this a fantasy of the US military-industrial complex?
The US European Commander wants more US troops in Europe "to deter Russian aggression." Meanwhile, Poland is offering the US $2 billion to build a permanent US base on its territory. And the US is moving 2,500 new tanks and fighting vehicles into Europe. Does Russia really want to invade Europe? Or is this a fantasy of the US military-industrial complex?
The US European Commander wants more US troops in Europe "to deter Russian aggression." Meanwhile, Poland is offering the US $2 billion to build a permanent US base on its territory. And the US is moving 2,500 new tanks and fighting vehicles into Europe. Does Russia really want to invade Europe? Or is this a fantasy of the US military-industrial complex?
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host and Daniel, good to see you.
How are you this morning, Dr. Paul?
Doing very well and I'd like to talk about, believe it or not, I'd like to visit with you on foreign policy.
Yes.
Spending.
They're spending more money.
They want more money.
And there's a war going on and nobody knows about it.
So we have to be careful on what the people say, not to scare the people.
We have a general who's in charge of the European Command, which has been there a long time, probably since World War II, you know, our command over there.
We have 62,000 troops in Europe.
There's not enough because this is what he wants.
He wants more troops.
And he gives a reason for it.
He said, we need more troops to deter Russian aggression.
I missed it.
When did they commit aggression against Europe?
I remember the time when Russia, Stalin and Hitler invaded Poland.
You know, there was some aggression there.
But do we really need to send these troops to stop this aggression?
Have they confirmed that there's been aggression committed by Russian soldiers into Europe?
Well, you can always play with the terms.
Aggression now is defined by when the U.S. puts a bunch of troops and has military exercises on the Russian border.
If the Russians complain, well, that's Russian aggression.
And it's also Russian aggression, the fact that the U.S. overthrew the government of Ukraine in 2014.
It was a color revolution.
Victoria Newland was one of the ones behind it, overthrew their government.
The people that were left behind didn't want to be part of Ukraine.
So they held a referendum in Crimea and decided to join Russia, where they had been for hundreds of years.
So that's Russian aggression.
If you respond to a U.S. coup attempt, successful coup attempt, then you're the aggressor.
Well, I'm on the understanding that the build-up isn't there.
They don't have tanks on the border.
And there hasn't been a massive expansion of military spending by the Russians.
I think there's been modernization, which is part of the game of what governments do.
But they haven't massively increased their spending.
And it looks like we have.
We're well over 700.
We're 700 billion, but we're closer to a trillion.
And we're every place all the time.
And what we spend is equal to about the next nine countries.
So we're not being outspent.
And we're not being threatened.
There's nothing, no troops near our borders.
And nobody's staying awake at night thinking that we're going to have a nuclear attack.
I mean, the last time we worried about that was from Saddam Hussein, which was, oh, you know, propaganda.
So they have to build up the enemy.
But, you know, it's interesting that they've been doing this now.
There were some people who didn't like the end of the Cold War, which I thought was magnificent.
But there were some that just couldn't stand that.
And even when Trump was running I mean he wasn't he wasn't running and telling us about the danger of Russia.
And yet here we are, spending more money and nobody's seems to be laughing at or criticizing it.
Maybe we will get a couple critics outside of our organization, but the average person on the street probably has no idea that we decide to spend a lot more money on Europe to protect Europe from Russia.
And this has a real sniff of politics and the military-industrial complex because, as you point out, not only is Russia not jacking up its spending like we've done, they've actually, for the first time in a long time, they cut their military spending by 20% last year, 17 over 16.
And right after the re-election of Putin in March, he said they're having more cuts next year and this year and the following year.
So they're actually making significant military cuts.
They've been surpassed by Saudi Arabia.
Now they're only spending the fourth largest amount of money on the military.
And Putin, this is not something that we would necessarily agree with, but he said, I've got to do this because my goal is to raise the standard of living and to improve social care in Russia.
And the money's got to come from somewhere.
I'm pulling it out of the military.
So, you know, they're cutting back.
And in the meantime, we're saying we've got to pump up the troops.
We've got to ramp up the troops.
And this is what Scott Paradi said.
This is his rationale.
He says, we're going to have to divert some of these counterterrorism resources.
They've got to be redirected to Russia.
We need to pull troops out of Syria and Iraq, he suggested, and bring them over to Russia.
So doesn't this smell like a real racket?
You know, this whole thing's winding down, but we've got to keep the fear up so we can keep selling stuff.
Well, you know, so often these conflicts we've had for the last couple decades have been related to currencies and an attack on the dollar.
Well, Russia's not exactly sympathetic for our dollar after all the sanctions that we have put on them.
But if they're saving money in the military, yes, they probably are going to want to spend more money on their social policies.
But they're also buying a lot more gold, which directly represents an attack on the dollar because they're joining, you know, with China and other countries that would like to prepare for the day that they have another option.
And at the rate we're doing with the lack of credibility, the loss of credibility for the United States, this is a more likely event.
But, you know, that is involved, the currency is involved, but the military-industrial complex is very much involved.
They might be really running the show.
But they must have some friends in Poland, you know, who I guess they have a military-industrial complex there because they're lobbying for us.
It isn't like we're a sovereign nation.
If you put your troops in here, if there is a problem with Russia and the United States, we're right in the middle of this.
They're begging and pleading.
Will you build the base?
We want a permanent American base.
It's part of NATO.
But they don't want it just in NATO base.
They want a United States base.
And you know darn well that it has very little to do for national defense.
It has to do with they're going to make some money off it.
And that's how they think that they have more prosperity, which is a fallacy, by the way.
Yeah, this is kind of a ploy on their part.
But they're pretty savvy, I think, because they've noticed that Trump says, hey, if he wants to protect you, you've got to pony up, you've got to pay for it.
And so they've offered $2 billion if the U.S. builds a U.S. military base in Poland, a permanent U.S. military base in Poland.
You've got to permanently station troops in Poland.
And of course, that is certainly something that is an affront to Russia.
It's putting the U.S. military that much closer to Russia.
Russia responded through its spokesman: when we see the gradual expansion of NATO military structures towards our borders, this, of course, in no way creates security and stability in the continent, they've complained.
So they don't want to have a base right next door to them.
Why would they?
Somebody who's going to make some money on it.
They have a thing called the European Deterrence Initiative, and that's the process of just sending more money over there, separate from NATO of what we are already spending.
And their goal there is to pump in $4.6 billion.
And I think the DOD budget has some money in there, and they're waiting to find out what the national defense strategy will say, because I think there's a report coming out there, and they're hoping that it will put emphasis on this, because that's sort of like a Bible.
If they put it in there and say, you need to do it, this will be their excuse to go ahead and do it.
But I think the people who benefit the weapons manufacturers know exactly what's going on in Washington.
We've seen them there.
You always point out that you live near them or rode past their neighborhood.
Oh, yeah.
And they do quite well because it's a big business and there's a lot of money made in the arms business.
And, you know, this $2 billion that Poland is offering, this is very political because they're going to spend $2 billion, but they're going to reap billions more dollars if the U.S. sends a few thousand troops there indefinitely.
Local economy is going to be artificially propped up by the continuing infusion of U.S. dollars.
So they're no dummies when it comes to this.
They know what it's like to be on the military welfare train, and they're lining up for it.
Yeah, and there's a fallacy in this because even if they get, they're going to invest $2 billion, but it's going to be a military operation, and they'll spend more money, and that will distract from enhancing the general overhaul standard of living of the people because it's misdirected.
And same way, it definitely is harmful to us because we don't have the money.
There will be profits made.
There's war profits made off borrowing and printing money.
But of course, that's just adding to the problems we have and to the Bible.
I mean, we've talked a little bit about what's going on in Europe and Italy right now.
And this is just more of that.
And just because there's a lot of chaos as a result of some of this bad political philosophy and economic philosophy, we're not, you know, philosophically any better off.
And we have these problems too.
It's going to hit here.
It's not only going to be Italy.
That's what I've been concerned about.
Look at Italy and what's going to happen.
Look at how disgruntled they are with the European Union and the Euro.
And look at how even the British had enough nerve to get out of the Europe.
So here we have the Italians doing this, but the Spanish and Greece and these other countries, it can cascade.
And then we're going to have Europe may be the real problem they ought to be thinking about.
And maybe they are because they want these anti-terrorist groups.
Oh, yeah, well, maybe they're right.
Maybe we will have it.
But they'll never stop and say, well, maybe what we're dealing with is the consequence of our foreign policy in the Middle East.
They'll never put that together.
Matter of fact, if you go to Starbucks and ask them for advice, you know what they would tell us.
If everything is for free, whatever you want.
Exactly, exactly.
Well, you know, Defense News, the publication, reported that last week the U.S. notified Germany that's sending a massive shipment of military equipment to Europe.
So the military-industrial complex is thrilled with this.
This is in case of war on the continent, as if we're on the verge.
So they're sending 3,300 troops and 2,500 pieces of military equipment additionally to Europe.
I was reading this list and thinking, am I back in 1944?
You know, we are refighting World War II in Europe.
It is just absolutely insane.
No, it is.
They're always fighting in the last war.
But that's not their goal to be consistent or anything.
It looks like anything where we can spend the money and make a profit.
I mean, it is very immoral.
It has nothing to do with national defense.
And one of the most disgusting things with our foreign policy is the trap they put us all into.
That if you say anything about sending these troops abroad or spending the money on it, don't you know, you know, Memorial Day, I mean, they're our heroes.
They protect our Constitution and they protect our way of living and our freedom.
How in the world they do it?
And I have a little bit of leverage to say that because I was in the military for five years.
I wasn't protecting the Constitution.
Fortunately, I didn't have to do any nasty things.
But when you go over there and get involved in war, yes, they're closer to being victims than anything else.
I mean, I feel really sorry for them because they actually are taught to believe that they're protecting our Constitution and incessant, you know, and praising them.
Whatever they need and do, they're protecting our liberties and our constituents.
Undeclared war.
And how do we get freer?
Oh, with the Patriot Act.
That's keeping us free.
And SAA, they make us free.
So it's so much hypocrisy.
It's just a shame that we can't wake more people up.
Read Between the Lines00:02:09
Absolutely.
Well, I would just say by, you know, in the communist era, people learned to read the papers very cautiously.
They read their Pravda, and they realized that they had to read between the lines to find the real truth.
And unfortunately, Americans are not yet quite that good at it.
I think we're making headway with the alternative media, and that's why they're trying to shut the alternative media down, like the Ron Paul Institute and the Liberty Report.
But the fact is, this is a classic time when you need to read between the lines.
This is a game of whack-a-mole.
Just a couple of years ago, remember, the Yazidis, we had to save them.
The Khorazon group, ISIS, we had to go an absolute threat to the U.S. immediate threat.
And now we're saying, well, we've got to take some troops out of there because the real threat this time, guys and gals, is Russia and China.
We've got to ramp it up.
It's a game they're playing with us, and it's destroying our economy.
It's destroying our moral compass.
It's destroying our future for our children and grandchildren.
And it is a tragedy.
Well, you know, in some way, we see signs that we can call optimistic because if you ask questions in general, do you really believe and trust our government?
And, you know, it's overwhelmingly the majority.
60, 70% sometimes say that they don't believe it.
If you look at commissions, whether it's a commission of 9-11 or Kennedy commissions, and even though when it's coming out, people swallow it all.
But after the dust settles and they think about it, they don't even believe that anymore.
But when it comes up to today's announcement, they're either going to completely ignore it, you know, and say, well, I'm not even interested in that, and they don't see it in the news.
Or if they do, they say, well, it could be, you know, maybe North Korea is about to attack us, and maybe there's those Iranians are going to get us.
So they buy into the immediacy of it.
But overall, the people are getting more skeptical.
And I think that is very, very good because there's reason to believe that one day people are going to give up.
And the credibility of our government in international affairs, we've talked about a lot.
And that's good.
It's good.
We shouldn't be a dictator.
We shouldn't run an empire.
And the sooner we get that in the heads and think that is good, and that's pro-America, the better off we'll be.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.