After his Oval Office visit today, an affair dominated by foreign reporters speaking truth to power by clamoring for more global military spending, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had to defend his alliance’s often-touted moral assertion: that NATO is defensive in nature.
Asked by ZeroHedge whether NATO’s good deeds in Libya and Iraq qualified as defensive, Rutte had this to say:
NATO chief Mark Rutte often refers to his alliance as “defensive.”
I asked whether Hillary Clinton’s regime war in Libya or Cheney’s Iraq — both NATO operations — were defensive operations. pic.twitter.com/sa8X1qcsFt
— Liam Cosgrove (@cosgrove_iv) June 24, 2026
Rutte: Again, NATO is there to defend 1 billion people living in NATO territory, from California up to and including Turkey, and everything in between. This is a transatlantic, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Alliance. It is extremely powerful. It is the strongest defensive alliance in world history. And we have our discussions, as you have seen this afternoon. There are always debates. These are democracies.
ZH: But what about those wars? What about Libya and Iraq?
Rutte: I’m not going to comment on everything, but I can assure you, NATO is there to defend. But if we would be attacked, you can be assured, that if we get attacked by anyone, for example the Russians or whoever, that our reaction would be devastating.
One million Iraqis may be dead. Libya may no longer be a cohesive country, with sub-Saharan slave auctions returning post-NATO liberation… but hey! It was debated. We’re democratic.
Libya was infamously a Hillary Clinton operation, something she reportedly believed would be a slam dunk victory and propel her into the presidency in 2016. Instead, after killing Gaddafi, Benghazi happened, where embassy officials and CIA contractors were murdered in a surprise attack.
Most know of this scandal but few know why there was a secret CIA compound still located in Benghazi, Libya after Gaddafi had been murdered. As investigative reporter Seymour Hersh broke in 2014, it was to smuggle weapons from the no-longer-needed Libyan “rebels” to the freedom fighters in Assad’s Syria… a regime change that would eventually be achieved and was publicly celebrated by Israeli PM Netanyahu, who took partial credit.
Western values:
Hillary Clinton,on hearing about Gaddafi’s death in Sirte, Libya.
20 Oct 2011.
Hillary Clinton: “We came, we saw, he died!”Q:”Did it [Gaddafi’s death] have anything to do with your visit?
Clinton: “Nah…I’m sure it did (giggles)”
🤔 pic.twitter.com/QoUQS0sp4d— Richard (@ricwe123) March 19, 2023
Mark Rutte has been successful at ratcheting up weaponry spending across Europe, combining his ability to flatter Trump and by leveraging Trump’s threats against NATO members to “pay their fair share”. Rutte is apparently an aspiring Lindsay Graham as he approaches 60 years of age with no kids, wife, nor girlfriend and a seemingly singular focus at prolonging wars.
His latest attempt, today, to seduce Trump included a posterboard-demonstration featuring the global increases in European NATO spending that has occurred under Trump’s terms:
Nothing like cheerful, childless men trying to drag you into World War III while they constantly remind you of their moral virtuosity. Reminiscent of the Biden years.
Trump and Vance deserve great credit and support as they try to resist the warmongers in the Levant. Let’s hope they can resist the ones in Brussels as well. And yes, yes.. Trump started the war in Iran. But, to anyone paying attention, it was against his will and now he and Vance are entering uncharted territory in their defiance towards Israel. To reference Sey Hersh again, from his latest Substack post:
“Last week President Donald Trump walked away from a postwar alliance dating back almost eight decades by telling Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that America’s romance with Israel is over. The bond between the two nations, officially dating back to 1948, when Israel was recognized by the United Nations, was shredded. Perhaps forever. Trump has told the New York Times and its columnists who bemoan what they fear will be a bereft and vulnerable Israel, in constant peril from a potential Iranian nuclear weapon, that Israel is on its own.
It had been an American political ritual, like kissing babies when campaigning, to support Israel in all things, as did President Joe Biden”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/26/2026 – 04:15
