Martin Jay
The Munich conference was about keeping subjects alive so that that the elites themselves will still have jobs which they can use to hide behind when the lawsuits come for graft
"We must keep the sanctions. Because the sanctions give [Russia] the money to pay for this war and build their military even further", said Nancy Pelosi, the former house speaker in Washington at the Munich security conference. Other members on the panel, which included Ukraine's foreign minister, looked at her rather oddly, wondering whether she had meant to say exactly what she had uttered. Of course it was a Freudian slip. She actually meant to say the opposite but, the MSC conference, being what it was this year - a flop - absorbed the absurdity of the moment, along with many others.
This year's MSC conference in Munich didn't really hold its weight leaving many wondering what is the point of these global security conferences in the first place when Iran and Russia - two countries who you really want to engage with if you are serious about the subject - were not invited. Fifty heads of state turned up, with of course Germany's Numpty-in-Chief Olaf Scholz who managed to successfully avoid making a plane English response to all of the scripted questions presented to him by one of the journalists invited to chair the discussions. If there was any doubt before the conference that the man is a prize idiot, his interview, which he conducted in English, set the record straight once and for all. It was impossible listening him ramble on to not imagine him in a Nazi uniform talking about inventories over the phone to a subordinate. Surely our man Olaf would have been an accountant during the Second world war. And a second rate one at that.
The conference was overplanned and overprepared for in true German style that all of the questions and answers were ironed out beforehand. Ursula von der Leyen started her monologue off with demanding more money for the EU. Incredible. Jens Stoltenberg sent everyone to sleep talking about the special relationship between the U.S. and the EU and underpinning what a great investment it is for the EU to plough tax dollars into the Ukraine war. It's as though western elites have all decided that the only way they can save face while in the jaws of defeat is to do everything in their powers to make sure that the war continues. At any cost. Just keep this bloody war in motion and keep the money pouring into the industrial military complex, or in the case of the recent EU cash, keep it in the Ukraine's coffers, which we all know means mostly in Zelensky's back pocket.
The Munich conference was not about discussing security at all in fact. It was about keeping subjects alive so that that the elites themselves will still have jobs which they can use to hide behind when the lawsuits come for graft. The only defence that is the heart of the issue is the individuals themselves who are looking out for themselves and the standing ovation for Zelensky should have given anyone a clue as to who organised the conference and for what purpose. The applause was as vulgar and inappropriate as the event coinciding with the death of Alexey Navalny and the vultures like Ursula von der Leyen feasting on it to try and project the EU as though it is a democracy. Perhaps that was the cheeky smile - which Navalny's wife couldn't help but fail to contain - was all about. Did she see the interview VDL did where she spoke of "European values" when lamenting on the death of the political activist? Are these the same values of Israel murdering 28,000 civilians in a genocide which the EU supports? Or Julian Assange being locked up with no charges yet still to be finalised.