世界が注目する今後のギリシャ債務問題、多くのマスコミ報道がありますが、報道されないギリシャの真実、事実として巨額の軍事支出があります、あまりにも巨額すぎる金額で債務問題を加速させたと言われています。瀕死の経済状態の中、ギリシャ支援金の多くが・・・巨額の利権を得ていた米、独、仏等の・・・チプラス首相は首相就任前後、徹底的に細かく精査していたと言われています。
現チプラス首相（ギリシャ人の移民三世としてアテネ郊外で生まれる。10代半ばでギリシャ共産党の青年団に入党、17歳のとき、教育制度改革に反対する活動に参加、数か月にわたり仲間とともに高校を占拠、学生運動で頭角を現し、テレビの政治討論番組にも「極左高校生活動家」のリーダーとして登場、国立アテネ工科大学、メツォヴォ工科大学、大学院で土木工学や都市計画を学ぶ、2006年アテネ市長選挙に出馬、3位で落選、2009年10月4日、ギリシャ議会総選挙で初当選、急進左派連合の党首に就任、2012年6月ギリシャ議会総選挙では、急進左派連合を第2党に躍進させ、欧州債務危機からギリシャ国内での財政緊縮策への反対を訴えています。2015年ギリシャ議会総選挙において急進左派連合が第一党になったことにより、同年1月26日に40歳でギリシャの首相に就任、過去150年間で最年少のギリシャ首相）は正義感が強いと言われており、過去のウクライナ（現傀儡政権の前）同様反ＥＵは許せない行為であり、ＥＵ離脱を示唆すれば首相批判が今後ギリシャ以外で更に増える可能性があると言われています。
Greek Crisis Awaits Other NATO Partners、Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRIストックホルム国際平和研究所) notes、等の一部を参考とし、一部を要約しています。信頼性は高いと思います。
我々が知らなければならないのは、普通の国家では考えられない軍事費・・・3200億ドルというギリシャ債務負担は、軍事費によるところが大きいという隠れた事実です。世界のマスコミは殆ど報道しません。ギリシャ債務累積の半分以上、1500億ドル以上が軍事支出と言われています。
今の債務危機が起きる前、ヨーロッパ諸国は軍事費に約2パーセント程度を配分していたと言われます。ギリシャは、GDPの約7パーセントです。経済崩壊した今でさえ、欧州連合で最大の軍事支出は GDPの2.2パーセントの高率です。NATO28ヶ国中で、ギリシャは経済生産の約3.8パーセントを軍に割り当てています。過去のギリシャ政権と、EU、欧州中央銀行、IMFの債権者達は何故指摘しなかっただろうかと言われています。
ギリシャが、イタリア、ベルギー、スペインや、ドイツの様に、GDPの約1パーセントにまで、軍事支出を半減してたら・・・財政で、IMFの差し当たっての要求に合致する20億ドルを生み出すことが可能と言われています。U/ECB/IMFトロイカに要求されている緊縮政策を緩和することが出来たと言われています。
問題は債権者達がこの選択肢を拒否する理由は長年にわたるギリシャの軍事支出は、ドイツ、フランスと、アメリカの兵器産業にとっては失いたくないドル箱だったようです。
SIPRI（ストックホルム国際平和研究所）の数値によれば、1500億ドルのギリシャ軍事支出のうち、2010年までの間、購買の25パーセントがドイツから、13パーセントがフランスから、42パーセントは、アメリカからのものだと言われています。
ギリシャ機関債権者が総計1000億ドルに達するドイツ政府とフランス政府なのは偶然ではないようです・・・ギリシャに貸した金の多くは、レオパルト戦車、ミラージュ戦闘機、アメリカのF-16等、ドイツやフランス等などの兵器システムに費やされている事実があります。これらの国は事実が洩れることを憂慮していると言われています、おそらく今後ギリシャ側は強い態度でＥＵ側と債務問題等を話し合う可能性があると言われており、過去のアイスランド加盟時同様、離脱阻止の為なら何でも条件ＯＫの状態も考えられます・・・
過去2012年4月、ガーディアンのインタビュー記事・・・ギリシャ国会議員デミトリス・パパディモウリス氏は2010年に経済危機が始まった後、ドイツとフランスは、医療部門等で大幅削減を強いながら、片方では儲かる兵器売買をまとめようとしていた独、仏を痛烈に批判しています。
米、独、仏は自国軍需産業等に対する市場としてギリシャを確保していました・・・ギリシャ債務を膨張させたのは間違いない事実だと思います。
軍需物資収賄、2013年10月、以前のPASOK政府時代の元防衛大臣アキス・ツォハヅォポウロスは7500万ドルと何十人もの他のアテネ高官が関わった賄賂事件における役割で20年の懲役にされています。ドイツ企業フェロスタールは不正な武器商売での金儲け・・・何よりも約30億ドル以上の四隻の214級潜水艦のギリシャへの販売を確実に手に入れたということに対し、1億5000万ドルを支払わされています。
1975年にキプロス侵略、ギリシャにとって永続的な安全保障上の脅威として描き出されていたのはトルコだと言われています。米国と独と仏はギりシャの腐敗した政治家と共に、融資と軍事物資購入を勧める為、トルコの脅威を誇張したと言われています。対立の構図作成と腐敗した政治家・・・シナリオの悲しい結末が、IMF、ドイツ、仏がギリシャの経済的略奪となって跳ね返っていると言われています・・・これが現在のギリシャ債務危機の一側面であることは間違いないようです。これらの事実は現政権が発表しても報道はカットされ世界中の人々は情報操作されたニュースを鵜呑み、真相を知っているのはギリシャ国民のみ、正義感が強いチプラス首相は反ＥＵに転じれば、今後変わり者等、政権の座から降りるよう圧力が掛かる可能性があります、それも自国の国民からでなく！
Greek Crisis Awaits Other NATO Partners
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRIストックホルム国際平和研究所) notes、等を参考としています。
参考文
Greek Crisis Awaits Other NATO Partners
One notable consequence of the Ukraine conflict and the ongoing confrontational stand-off between the West and Russia is the dramatic surge in military spending among several European countries.
However, this unprecedented militarisation of economies across Europe portends a disastrous Greek-style future of crippling debt for these same countries. Those most at risk from a future hangover of military overspend in the years ahead include the Baltic states, Poland and the Scandinavian countries.
This outcome may indeed explain why Washington and its closest NATO allies have embarked on what appears to be a reckless geopolitical confrontation with Russia. The tensions being stoked from the alleged Russian threat – mainly by Washington – are in turn leading to lucrative weapons sales for the Pentagon and its military-industrial complex.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently assured that the US-led military alliance “would not get dragged into an arms race with Russia”. But that’s exactly what appears to be underway, at least for the eastern European and Scandinavian members or partners of NATO.
The agenda of confrontation – most vehemently articulated by Washington – is not so much to instigate an all-out hot war between NATO and Russia. Former American ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, last weekend stated that “only a fool would invade Russia”. That admission may actually be an accurate measure of Washington’s calculations. Despite the ongoing aggressive US-led military posturing toward Russia, the real aim may not in fact be the contemplation of a war with Moscow, but rather to create a climate of fear and insecurity from an alleged Russian threat in order to boost military spending of the aforementioned NATO members.
In its latest report on military spending across Europe, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) notes: “The political and military crisis in Ukraine has led to a major reassessment of threat perceptions and military strategies in much of Europe. Increased threat perceptions have led to calls in Europe for higher military spending and, in particular, a renewed commitment by NATO members to spend at least 2 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on the military.”
Among the increasing military budgets for 2015 compared with the previous year are: Czech Republic (+3.7%), Estonia (+7.3%), Latvia (+15%), Lithuania (+50%), Norway (+5.6%), Poland (+20%), Romania (+4.9%), Slovak Republic (+7%), and non-NATO member Sweden (+5.3%).
Significantly, most of the Western European NATO members are either reducing or freezing their military spending. They include Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Denmark and Spain.
Out of the increased military spenders, Poland has the biggest financial outlay amounting to some $35 billion over the next decade up to 2022. By comparison, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have much smaller allocations in absolute dollar terms. But what is important here is the scale relative to their much smaller economies.
As SIPRI notes: “In the medium- to long-term, the increase of 80 per cent or more in military spending required by some member states to reach the 2 per cent target is unprecedented for NATO members in peacetime. Since the end of the 1950–53 Korean War, the trend in almost all NATO members’ military budgets as a share of GDP has been downwards or flat, even during periods of increased tension with the Soviet Union.”
The United States as the world’s biggest weapons exporter stands to gain decisively from the enlarged European budgets and markets, from the sale of missile systems, tanks, warships and fighter jets. The added bonus for the Washington-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) is that if indebtedness of military spendthrift countries ensues then their future economic duress will permit an austerity-driven expropriation of economies for the benefit of Western finance capital. The process is not unlike what has already befallen Greece.
In the deluge of Western media reportage on the Greek debt crisis, one key aspect remains strangely hidden. That is, the fact that Greece’s debt burden of $320 billion has largely been incurred from decades of exorbitant militarism. Some estimates put at least half of the total Greek debt pile – more than $150 billion – down to military spending.
Before the onset of the current debt crisis in 2010, Greece was spending some 7 per cent of its GDP on military, when many other European countries were allocating about 2 per cent. Even now, five years after economic collapse, Greece is still the highest military spender in the European Union – at 2.2 per cent of GDP. Out of the 28-member NATO military alliance, Greece is the second highest such spender after the United States, which allocates about 3.8 per cent of its economic output to military.
The Greek government of Alexis Tsipras and the institutional creditors among the EU, European Central Bank and the IMF have studiously ignored a glaringly obvious option for trying to put Greece’s national finances on a sounder footing – namely, a massive shrinking of the country’s military.
If Greece were to reduce its military spend by half to around 1 per cent of GDP, as in Italy, Belgium, Spain or Germany, that could generate $2 billion in finances that would meet the IMF’s immediate demands and help to avoid the swingeing austerity measures demanded by the EU/ECB/IMF Troika.
But there is a good reason why the Troika of creditors are refusing that option. Greece’s military extravagance over many years has been an absolute goldmine for German, French and American weapons industries. Out of the $150 billion in military spending by Greece during the years up to 2010, 25 per cent of the purchases were from Germany, 13 per cent from France and 42 per cent from the US, according to figures from SIPRI.
It is no coincidence that Greece’s biggest institutional creditors are the German and French governments – standing at a combined $100 billion. Much of the capital lent to Greece was then spent on German and French weapons systems, such as Leopard tanks and Mirage fighter jets, as well as on American F-16s.
In an interview with the Guardian back in April 2012, Greek parliamentarian Dimitris Papadimoulis accused Berlin and Paris of “hypocrisy” because as he explained: “Well after the economic crisis had begun [in 2010], Germany and France were trying to seal lucrative arms deals even as they were pushing us to make deep cuts in areas like health.”
Thus Berlin and Paris were knowingly inflating Greece’s debt, which was being used to provide a major market for their defence industries. That revolving door of finance was also spinning with corruption. In October 2013, Greece’s ex-defence minister Akis Tsochatsopoulous in the previous PASOK government was jailed for 20 years for his part in a bribery case involving $75 million and dozens of other Athens officials. Germany company Ferrostaal was also forced to pay $150 million for its role in the arms racket, which among other things secured the sale of four Class 214 submarines to Greece worth around $3 billion.
The convenient bogeyman in the Greek scenario was Turkey, which invaded Cyprus in 1975, and was portrayed as a perennial security threat to Greece. Washington, Berlin and Paris, along with corrupt politicians in Athens, played up the Turk threat in order to spin the revolving door of loans and military purchases. The sorry end to that scenario is now a Greek debt crisis which is rebounding with economic rape of the country led by the IMF and the EU powers, primarily Berlin and Paris.
One further irony in this modern Greek tragedy is that the alleged Turk threat accentuated by Washington and its European allies, eliciting massive militarisation by Greece, was supposedly attributed to a fellow NATO member – Turkey. Whatever happened to NATO’s Article 5 of collective security during all those years of insecurity?
How much easier then is it for Washington and its NATO allies to present Russia with old Cold War stereotypes as a security threat to eastern Europe and Scandinavia?
And from the surge in military spending by eastern European countries and Scandinavia, that ploy appears to be thriving. The US military-industrial complex and its German, French and British counterparts stand to rake in billions of dollars over the coming years from the junior NATO members who are suitably scared witless from the “Russian spectre”.
But if the history of militarism in Greece is anything to go by, a Greek-style debt crisis is in store for the Baltic states, Poland and the Scandinavians.
US-led NATO protection? More like US-led NATO protection racket.
