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

Submitted by Tyler Durden
09/23/2011 13:10 -0400
Comments: 62 / Reads: 4,677

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: http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/10/47938

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.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/not-spart ... ng-poverty