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3/23/2009 8:20:52 PM - Cathy Fischer, Regina Peace Council
NATO CELEBRATES ITS 60TH YEAR
March 23, 2009
Cathy Fischer, Regina Peace Council
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization marks its 60th anniversary this year. The military alliance started out as an anti-Soviet institution of the Cold War, taking in countries in North America and Europe, and dominated by the military-industrial complex of the U.S. But NATO has since upped the ante and is now intent on controlling the resources of the whole world for the benefitof the same military-industrial complex.
As a military alliance, NATO contravened the provisions of the Charter of the newly-formed United Nations, and ever since it has been trying to do an end-run around the U.N.’s mission to bring peace to the world.
By the end of the 1980's, the socialist governments in the Soviet Union and the New Democracies had been dismantled. NATO no longer had its mission to "contain communism’ but NATO did not disappear. Instead, although stilled called a North American organization, NATO was expanded as the military arm of the U.S. program of economic dominance of the whole world.
In the early 1990's, the Gulf War established the precedent of NATO’s interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, going against the provisions of the United Nations. In 1999 NATO started bombing Yugoslavia. Just weeks later, as NATO chiefs gathered in Washington to celebrate the organization’s 50th anniversary, Washington’s "new strategic concept" for NATO was announced – the ‘right’ to attack a nation anywhere in the world on humanitarian grounds. At the same time NATO maintained its right to use nuclear weapons, and refused to give up the right to pre-emptive attack, both of which also violated precepts of the United Nations. The U.S. felt free to mete out vigilante justice, using its NATO posse, wherever it suited American strategic goals. As Secretary of State Madeleine Albright commented: "What’s the point of having this superb military...if we can’t use it?"
NATO’s next big adventure was in Afghanistan, officially expanding NATO’s reach beyond the North Atlantic and Europe. On October 7, 2001, Operation Enduring Freedom was launched in Afghanistan by the United States along with the United Kingdom, using the excuse of the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Centre, and that Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan. Since some of its NATO allies had supported the U.S. in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, including Canada, some meekly went along with the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and by 2002, NATO was officially part of the attack and was soon operating throughout the whole country. There had been no support from the United Nations for the invasion. That was eight years ago and Osama bin Laden has not been captured, and more and more officials are making statements indicating they do not think NATO can win this war.
In the meantime the U.S. military-industrial complex had been working at bringing more and more countries under its control through NATO. In 1994 NATO had instituted two ‘transitional mechanisms’ for bringing states under its control. At the time of NATO’s 50th anniversary in 1999, there were three new members, all former Warsaw Pact members. Three years later there were seven more new members, and half a dozen more countries had joined one of the ‘transitional mechanisms.’ In addition six of the small nations around the Persian Gulf had signed up for ‘military-to-military co-operation to contribute to interoperability’ with NATO. Two of the new members of NATO have shores on the Black Sea, adjacent to the Caspian oil reserves, and NATO recently conducted naval exercises in the Black Sea. U.S. media are talking about the necessity for president Obama to send troops into Sudan, on ‘humanitarian’ grounds. In southeast Asia, along the Stratis of Malacca, the U.S. has installed military radars capable of scanning Indonesia and its neighbours.
In his book The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-chair of the Bush National Security Advisory Task Force, saw NATO as part of an "integrated, comprehensive and long-term geostrategy for all of Eurasia," in which NATO would eventually reach Asia. As it celebrates its 60th year, it seems NATO is doing what the military-industrial complex in the U.S. had in mind for it. At the same time, this ‘success’ means NATO comes ever closer to world war, a conflict between the U.S. and its NATO allies on one hand, and on the other, Russia, China, many of the Muslim states, and the ‘socialist’ states in South America. Many have placed the hope for peace on newly-elected Barack Obama. However, as president of the U.S. he has said nothing about cutting military spending; he has said the U.S. will withdraw its troops from Iraq but has increased the number going to Afghanistan; he has said nothing about changing the role of NATO.
It will be up to the people in NATO countries to stop the drive to war. Some peace organizations in Canada that work for peace are calling for NATO to give up its insistence on its right to use nuclear weapons. But this is not enough. The military-industrial complex in the U.S. has to be stopped. One way Canadians can help in that direction is to make our government take Canada out of NATO.
