All Episodes
Previous Next
Feb. 28, 2024 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
21:11
'Napoleon' Macron: 'Let's Send NATO Into Ukraine!'

French President Emmanuel Macron surprised European NATO members earlier this week by stating that it may be necessary to send NATO troops into Ukraine to fight Russia on a "bipartisan" basis. His European counterparts for the most part recoiled at the suggestion, with speculation about WWIII. Also today: Surprising poll on Gaza.

|

Time Text
NATO's Dilemma: Macron & Russian Troops 00:15:24
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning into the Liberty Report.
I'm Daniel McAdams, filling in for your regular host, Ron Paul, who is out today.
Now, some people have been saying, well, is Ron Paul okay?
Of course, he's okay.
He's taking a couple of days off for some business he has to take care of.
And by the way, yesterday, neither of us were in.
We took a little trip.
Let's put up that clip.
This is going to be a lot of fun when it comes out.
We took a little trip over to Florida.
I think you can see what I'm talking about.
We had a great talk, great little visit with Tucker Carlson over there.
And so everyone should be looking forward to that interview.
We'll let you know when we know it's going to come out.
So Dr. Paul, I'm sure we'll be back in the saddle very soon.
So anyway, I've just got a couple of things I want to talk about today.
As per the title, Napoleon Macron wants to invade Russia.
It didn't go well the last time France invaded Russia.
Nevertheless, maybe he wants to send someone else's troops.
But put up that first clip because this is what happened.
He called a meeting of European NATO members on Monday, and they were all meeting and visiting, figuring out what we're going to do to help Ukraine win.
And he threw out something that, well, it wasn't quite accepted as well.
This is from Dijovela News.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he does not want to rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine as defeating Russia was essential to Europe's security.
You can leave that up.
I'm going to read you pretty much exactly what he said.
He said, there's no consensus today to officially, openly, and with the endorsement, send troops on the ground.
But in terms of dynamics, nothing should be ruled out.
He's adding that allies will do everything necessary to ensure that Russia cannot win this war.
So there's a lot of talk about what he said.
The idea might be, as floated by Macron, kind of on a bilateral basis, NATO members sending troops into Russia.
Well, it didn't go over as well as he had hoped.
And in fact, that next picture will show the example of Macron.
I love this picture because here's Macron, the tough guy.
Francis Macron will not rule out boots on the ground in Ukraine.
Look how tough he is.
He's talking tough.
Here's that same Macron a couple of days ago in France when he was at an agricultural exposition and the French farmers showed up.
Here's what he did when that happened.
Let's put that next picture on.
He's running for the exit.
Definitely photo of the day.
Macron running away from his own farmers.
So here you have the essence of Macron, I think, in many ways.
He loves to talk tough.
But when the going gets rough, he starts running.
You can find some interesting videos on Twitter of him dancing in the 80s.
I'm not going to show any.
I don't want to ridicule people.
A lot of us look goofy back then.
But nevertheless, the suggestion that NATO as such would send troops into Ukraine obviously would invite a Russian retaliation, the fear of World War III being started if you start seeing French troops as such.
No, we know there are mercenaries there.
We talked the other day about how many CIA paramilitaries and bases and things that have been set up over the past 10 years.
We know that France lost a huge group of mercenaries a few weeks ago when Russia hit a hotel they were decamping to in advance of entering into battle, which infuriated France as well.
So we know that there is already sort of sub-rows of military activity from people who are not on the official books of NATO soldiers.
Nevertheless, as such, sending in the military of NATO countries definitely changes the dynamics of the situation there.
And the other aspect that's somewhat humorous, maybe slightly less humorous than Macron running away from his own farmers and then talking tough talk about Russia is the fact that what are they going to invade with?
What are they going to use to invade?
I think we talked a couple of weeks ago about how this new batch of British destroyers had gymnasiums put in where the missiles were supposed to be stored because they didn't have money to buy the missiles.
We've talked on this show about how an assessment last year by the German Ministry of Defense that they would be able to survive for two days in a ground war.
And we even have France.
If you put on this next picture, this is from a piece that came out.
France talking tough about invading Russia.
Nevertheless, Europe looks abroad to get Ukraine weapons with Russia advancing.
So they don't have enough weapons even to send Ukraine.
They're looking to buy them outside of Europe.
So they don't have any weapons.
They don't have any troops.
They have gymnasiums instead of missiles.
Yet Macron is talking about invading Ukraine and head-to-head war against Russia.
And let's look at a little bit of media reaction to this.
It didn't go over as well.
Put on the next clip.
Here's probably a good, if you're watching us rather than listening, you can see an expression of Macron after he sees that everybody didn't leap up and say, what a brilliant idea, Emmanuel.
It's let's go.
Let's do this.
This may have been the expression he made when they said that.
But CNN said this could lead to the largest ground conflict Europe's seen since World War II.
I would add, with the exception of it including nuclear weapons, so there's a different twist there.
Wall Street Journal, Macron's remarks were a departure from the restraint shown by Western allies.
He tries to fill the leadership vacuum, but his attempt to show Russia strength played against him.
Bloomberg, Macron's comments contributed to the emergence of strategic ambiguity.
Such a move, however, would directly involve NATO in the fight against Ukraine.
New York Times said the negative attitude of European leaders toward the idea of Macron led to confusion about the unity of the alliance and provoked the question of whether his words should be considered an empty threat.
And that last point is important because NATO exists as a deterrent to the extent that it does by this ambiguity, by this idea that we're invincible.
And so with Macron getting out in front of NATO saying, hey, NATO, let's go to war with Russia, and the rest of the NATO partners saying, that's not a good idea.
This leads to what our good friend Colonel Doug McGregor said at the beginning, that the ultimate end of this conflict chosen by the West, of course, in Ukraine will be the dissolution of NATO.
And I think that suggests this.
But let's look at some other reaction to it.
I just picked these up.
Let's go to the next one.
So Britain rejects Macron's plan to send NATO troops to Ukraine.
World leaders line up to rebuff the French president.
The next one is Schultz from Germany.
And this is important because Schultz says, no way, Jose.
Quote, there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil who were sent there by European or NATO countries.
An interesting point.
And as a side point, I would mention that there has been a, for several weeks now, a dispute between Schultz and Macron because France has not been sending enough weapons and money to Ukraine, as per Schultz's view.
If you look at, I don't have the clip here, but the disparity between Macron's tough talk and the actual dollars and weapons they send, there's a huge disparity.
And Schultz and Germany are a little bit irritated with that.
So moving on, the Ministry of Defense, go to that next one.
The Ministry of Defense of Hungary expressed concern about Macron's words about sending troops to Ukraine.
Hungarian Defense Minister Krzysztof Salai-Brobanitsky emphasized that Budapest will not under any circumstances supply weapons or send its soldiers to the conflict zone.
Slovakia blew the whistle early on if you put the next one on.
They say that some NATO members are considering sending troops to Ukraine.
Their prime minister Robert Fitzo, who has recently elected and took power, he said it's a no-go when it comes to Slovakia.
There's no way in Hades that we're going to send Slovak troops.
In fact, they stopped sending Slovak weapons to Ukraine.
So we're left with France and possibly Poland and those all-powerful Baltic states still chomping at the bit to get involved.
I would just like to add the next point.
This is Andrew Korybko, who is an American analyst.
I think he's based in Russia, but he's an insightful person and he's worth reading.
I think he captures everything with this headline.
NATO's debate over whether to conventionally intervene in Ukraine shows its desperation.
Now think about that for a second.
Is Macron projecting strength when he says, you know what, guys, we actually are going to need to go in there.
What he's saying, what he's conveying with this point is that Ukraine is losing on the battlefield.
And we've talked about the loss of Avdievka.
Since that happened a few days ago, there have been other Russian advances.
It's clear that the rhetoric for the past two years of Ukraine winning or Ukraine going to win or just on the verge of winning with a little bit more money, those have all been lies.
Because the reality is there is desperation.
They're desperate because they know that this venture is doomed to failure.
They know that their proxy war with Russia via Ukraine is only resulting in hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainians.
If they were confident that Ukraine was winning, as they've been saying for two years, would they be talking about sending in NATO troops?
Do you do that when you're about to win?
I don't think so.
I don't think you'd send American soldiers or French soldiers or German soldiers into Russia to fight and be killed, or to Ukraine, to fight and be killed by Russians if you are confident, if you are winning, if you know it's inevitable with a couple more dollars, that they will win.
So it's a sign of desperation.
I think everyone sees that.
But it's also a dangerous sign because sometimes they will float these extreme measures, these extreme points, as a way of walking them back a little bit halfway.
It's a Hegelian dialectic.
They'll have a compromise.
Well, they'll only do, maybe they'll only send long-range missiles or F-16s with the explicit permission of bombs away on Moscow sort of thing.
So anyway, lack of confidence.
Here's a little bit of something from Korybko's essay, and it's on his sub stack, so you might want to look it up.
But he talks a lot, and it's a very interesting article.
I read it this morning.
He talks a lot about Poland being squeezed in the middle.
Poland has been the most enthusiastic.
Two years ago, they said there will no longer be a border between Ukraine and Poland, meaning we are so all in on this project that we are, you know, we don't even have a border anymore.
Well, they just announced yesterday, the new government in Poland, that they're closing their border with Ukraine.
They can't go in.
So here's Korybko.
Warsaw could be misled to believe without any written guarantees that it has the bloc's support and Article 5 would be activated if its forces clash with Russia there, but only to be hung out to dry if that happens so as to stave off World War III by miscalculation for the greater good.
He says, nevertheless, it would still serve the purpose of drawing a red line in the sand that could halt Russia's advance, since NATO might escalate via brinksmanship afterwards by promising to activate Article 5 if the clashes continue.
But, he says, Russia would, Poland would also be left to pick up the tab in that event by having to pay the financial and physical costs of this de facto NATO intervention, thus representing an amoral form of burden sharing that would fall solely on its taxpayers instead of the rest of the bloc.
So Poland will shoulder the entire burden.
And Khoribko also points out importantly that farmers' protests that are rocking that country right now could lead to a full-blown rebellion if that happens, since others could join in, however, which the ruling liberal globalists would prefer not to unfold since they fear they'd risk losing power.
And that's the new Donald Tusk government in Poland, which is hand in hand with Schultz and with the globalists.
So it looks like Poland could be left holding the bag if they say, hey, go on in, Poland.
It's green light.
Let's do it.
And Poland has the sense that Article 5 may be invoked.
But there's one other thing I want to say about this.
And it's very important because there's so much misinformation that goes out about Article 5.
It's treated as if it's some sort of a switch, that as soon as a NATO member is attacked, a switch is slipped and automatically the entirety of NATO strength goes against the perpetrator of an attack on NATO members.
And that is absolutely not true.
It's not the case.
It's never been the case.
And it's important to remember that.
And for this purpose, I'm going to put up a copy of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty just to point this part out, if we can put that up.
Article 5 states that the parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.
So that's the important part.
Now that's the part that you hear.
And consequently, they agree that if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the UN, will assist the party or party so attacked by taking forthwith individually and in concert with the other parties, and I've underlined this, such actions as it deems necessary,
including the use of force to restore and maintain the security.
So nowhere does it say there's an automatic military response by the other members if one member gets attacked.
It says that they may, according to their own, essentially according to their own laws of war, and for the U.S., that means a declaration of war in Congress.
But after that's taken place, they can do anything up to, and even including the use of armed force.
They may send a harshly worded letter.
They may send a nasty gram to Putin if he happens to bomb the marauding Poles going through Ukraine and hitting Russia.
They may do nothing.
They can do any and all of those.
So keep that in mind when you hear a talking head on TV talking about Article 5, because it is not how they represent it, and that's very important.
Biden's 77% Support 00:04:54
So final word on this, Macron, tough guy.
Let's go in.
Rest of Europe, nah, it doesn't seem like a good idea.
So we'll see what happens on this.
Not a winning look for the Western Alliance.
Let's just leave it at that.
I wanted to do one other thing today, and this is something thanks to our friends at antiwar.com and Dave DeCamp.
He brought this to my attention.
Everyone probably knows how much I love polls, especially when they go our way.
I think it's important.
But a new poll came out from Data for Progress, and it's a left-wing organization, a progressive group.
And they did a poll about Gaza.
And it says two-thirds of U.S. voters support U.S. pushing for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Two-thirds of U.S. voters.
The poll is from Data for Progress, as I mentioned.
Let's look at some of the tabs on this poll.
If you go to that next one, it's fascinating, actually.
So voters continue to support the U.S. calling for a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation of violence in Gaza.
The question is, do you support or oppose the U.S. calling for a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation of violence in Gaza?
Now, if you look at all likely voters, those who strongly support permanent ceasefire and somewhat support taken together are 67% of the American electorate.
Well, the news is even worse for Joe Biden because when you look at Democrat voters surveyed in this poll, you have that combined support for de-escalation and permanent ceasefire at 77%.
Almost eight in ten potential Biden voters do not agree with his inability to call for a ceasefire.
And even among Republicans, and this would include all of the Uberhawks, all of those in the U.S. Republican Party who blindly support Israel, you still have 56%, a solid majority of Republicans who do not want this to continue and who want to have, leave that up please, if you will, want to have a ceasefire.
Now this is interesting too because age, I think, is fascinating.
You have almost parody, but you have 68% of those under 45 and 67% of those over 45 who also want this to happen.
So by age, there's also virtually no difference.
Now I did do a bonus tab from the survey because I thought it was interesting to do it as well.
Voters support the U.S. calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, including the release of hostages.
Do you support or oppose U.S. calling for a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation?
In this one, you have all likely voters, a total of 74% support the U.S., i.e. Joe Biden, calling for a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation, including the release of Israeli hostages from Gaza.
That is a massive majority of Americans who feel that way.
And the response from Joe Biden, well, it wasn't too encouraging.
We have a little video of Biden when he was asked about whether or not, hey, are you going to call for a ceasefire?
We're going to get a ceasefire.
Let's have a look and see what Biden was up to when they were asking him this.
Oh, he was eating ice cream.
Let's listen in.
Can you give us a sense of when you think that ceasefire will start, sir?
Well, I hope by the beginning of the weekend, I mean the end of the weekend.
At least my national security advisor tells me that we're close.
We're close.
It's not done yet.
And my hope is by next Monday, we'll have a ceasefire.
Okay, thank you.
I mean, I guess in all fairness, that was an improvement on the part of our mainstream media.
They didn't just ask him what flavor he was eating, which is what they usually do.
But asked about this, he said, I hope it happens this weekend.
I don't know.
Don't ask me.
I'm eating ice cream.
Well, after he said this, it might happen by the weekend, the Israelis said, no, it's not going to happen this weekend.
So he seems completely powerless.
The only thing that he's been able to do is continue shoveling money and continue shoveling weapons to Israel as not only do they slaughter the Gazans, the Palestinians in Gaza, but as they open a new front of war in the north, as they continue to bomb Syria, he seems to be completely powerless.
And even as it is destroying his numbers in the polls, his reaction is, well, let's grab an ice cream cone.
I hope my advisors tell me it's going okay.
So things are not going okay for Biden.
Biden's Powerlessness 00:00:40
There was a primary in Michigan.
He doesn't have essentially an opponent.
He doesn't have an opponent as a Democrat.
There are a couple of very minor candidates.
He still only managed to get 80% of the vote in Michigan.
And those numbers, well, it looks overwhelming.
In fact, it's a danger sign.
It's a warning sign because there's an increasing anybody but Biden move in the Democratic Party.
Doesn't look good for him.
So I'm going to leave it at that point with a couple of, I think, important things to think about today.
Appreciate you joining the Liberty Report, even though Dr. Paul is not here.
And hope you'll continue to tune in.
I assure you, he will be back in the saddle as soon as he gets some things that he has to take care of done.
Export Selection