Stop NATO: Post-Summit Digest
May 24
New Age Colonialism: West Buying Up Third World?
[T]he western powers are left with the one option where they rule supreme: the military. NATO is planning its new global strategy with Libya as the working model. Smothered in rhetoric of “human rights”, “democracy” and “responsibility to protect”, the former colonial powers are planning their new “land grabbing”.
*****
NATO Summit Emphasizes Georgia, Baltic And Balkan States
Saakashvili continued to fawn and even lashed out at the new anti-NATO, Occupy demonstrators, calling them “relics of the past” and saying that the Cold War relic that is NATO was “more relevant now than ever before.” The disconnect was not only evident from the Georgian side. NATO reciprocated.
So get out those checkbooks and keep paying for the war and death that is NATO; after all, they keep shoving their missiles in Russia’s face and keep protecting you against the phantom menaces that they keep telling you are threatening you.
*****
NATO Summit: Everything That Is Wrong With Our Society
The NATO summit put on display how we can and do conjure up foreign and domestic threats to justify government control of our society. For it is fear that justifies not just our obscene military spending, but more importantly, the official violation of our civil and constitutional rights and the concession of political power to corporations.
*****
NATO In Chicago: Another World Without War And Injustice Is Possible
Poverty, inequality and militarism are forms of violence that constitute a vicious circle, which must be broken for the survival of humanity. Each of these evils is fed by the others, all must be challenged. All three are in NATO, a military alliance linked with the interests of several of the richest and most powerful nations.
The increase in military budgets under the pretext of safeguarding peace is an offense to people who lack the bare minimum to live with dignity. NATO, which has never been a defensive alliance, has invaded distant countries such as Afghanistan and Libya, with disastrous effects, and has been extended to the borders of Russia, causing the threat of a new nuclear arms race, and intends to go further, to Africa, East Asia and the Pacific.
*****
May 23
NATO In Chicago: Protests Here To Stay, Warmakers Are Afraid
At the NATO conference, world leaders say they are looking to “wind down” the war in Afghanistan. Apparently, the winding down is scheduled to go on until 2024, as far as U.S. involvement in the war. But the system that creates these wars is not winding down. And that is the problem. That’s also why Chicago’s streets this weekend were alive with dissent.
*****
Interview: NATO Loses Debate To “Demonstrators”
Audio and text
[T]he real proof of the pudding with NATO is, again in 1991, 21 years ago when the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union both dissolved themselves that NATO, far from retiring, goes into the business of expanding throughout all of Europe and then starts waging war in areas far removed from the North Atlantic and even outside of Europe. This tends to suggest that NATO contained, at the very least, within itself the kernel of military aggression from its very foundation.
*****
Russia Tests New ICBM After NATO Missile System Launched
A new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) so secret it has no name yet has been successfully tested in Russia, the defence ministry says.
The new weapon is designed to penetrate Nato’s European missile defence shield, Russian defence sources told the Interfax news agency.
The test came days after Nato said its system had reached “interim operational capability”.
*****
Video And Text: Kucinich Says Peace Is Possible, War Not Inevitable
We should forget about trying to conquer other countries: that’s an old model, that’d an old thinking from hundreds of years ago. We tried that in Iraq – it did not work. We have tried that in Afghanistan – it did not work. We keep trying that in Libya – it does not work. Their people want us to try that in Syria – it will not work. And it is not going to work in Iran, and the sooner that we understand it – the better it is…
*****
May 22
[T]here’s renewed attention to the obscene amounts the U.S. and NATO nations spend on armaments. This at a time when suffering from a lingering economic crisis continues to grow, when cities and states are mired in crisis and slashing public services – and while Obama’s defense secretary is opposing relatively minor spending cuts agreed to in last year’s budget deal.
*****
Audio And Video: Veterans Return Medals During NATO Summit
As thousands gathered this past Sunday in Chicago for a mass anti-NATO demonstration, close to 50 military veterans who had served in Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan led the march all the way to the NATO summit to give back their medals.
*****
NATO: Big Money, Big Interests And Global Domination
If the over-taxed American people realized that of the almost 50% of their salaries that they are paying in taxes, a large part of it, and the over 65 years of debt that is being passed along to their children, is also being spent not only to fund all of the American war machines and US military adventures all over the world, but it is also being used to provide approximately 79% of the funding for an organization that should have been disbanded over 20 years ago and one that it not even really wanted by the people it is supposed to be protecting in Europe…
*****
Video: NATO Rebrands Occupation Of Afghanistan
“What we’re looking at is a different form of US and NATO presence in Afghanistan,” says political analyst and writer Rick Rozoff.
“It is clear that NATO wants to expand its military presence throughout Central Asia as well as maintaining some sort of presence in Afghanistan.”
*****
NATO: European Interceptor Missile System Up And Running
“The US never attempted seriously to reach a realistic compromise with Russia,” considers political analyst and writer Rick Rozoff. He recalled the American ambassador saying last December that the US is going to deploy interceptor missile systems in Europe “whether Russia likes it or not”.
“That is hardly diplomatic talk,” mocks Rozoff.
*****
Kucinich: NATO Talks A Sham, War In Afghanistan Is Not Ending
“The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is not a benevolent organization. NATO is not about the North Atlantic and it’s not about our collective defense.
“NATO is a cost-sharing organization that finances aggressive military action. By hiding behind the claim that the organization provides for ‘common defense,’ NATO allows us to wage wars of choice under the guise of international peacekeeping. The most recent example was the unconstitutional war in Libya where NATO, operating under a United Nations mandate to protect civilians, instead backed one side in a civil war and pursued a policy of regime change.”
*****
May 21
Turkmenistan: NATO Completes Penetration Of Central Asia
Appathurai said NATO appreciates the effective assistance and support rendered by Turkmenistan in the restoration of social and economic infrastructure of neighboring Afghanistan.
A number of initiatives of the Turkmen side, including the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India construction project (TAPI), are an example.
*****
NATO Weighs In Against Russia On Post-Soviet Frozen Conflicts
“We remain committed in our support of the territorial integrity, independence, and sovereignty of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the Republic of Moldova…”
“We continue to call on Russia to reverse its recognition of the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions of Georgia as independent states,” said a joint declaration issued after the NATO summit in Chicago.
The declaration also urged Russia to withdraw its military presence from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, calling them “Georgia’s territory.”
*****
Clinton: All Future NATO Summits Should Be Expansion Summits
NATO should expand its membership at the next summit of the military alliance, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday at the start of a meeting with aspirants Bosnia, Georgia, Macedonia and Montenegro at a summit in Chicago, DPA reported.
“I believe this summit should be the last summit that is not an enlargement summit,” Clinton said.
For peace, against war: literary selections 