NATO: Making enemies ‘out of area’
Part 1
By
Heather Cottin
Published Oct 26, 2007 10:57 PM
Built up as an anti-Soviet military pact, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance
had no defined purpose after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. But under
Washington’s guidance, NATO has now expanded to be a worldwide NATO, tool
of imperialist conquest “out of area.” The first step was to use
NATO in Yugoslavia starting in 1992.
Yugoslavia was the last remaining socialist country in Eastern Europe, rich in
resources and with a skilled, trained working class. The U.S. and the European
imperialist countries began a campaign of demonization and destabilization of
the Yugoslav state, replete with false charges of genocide and mass rape, that
lasted for a decade.
On March 24, 1999, with U.S. President Bill Clinton leading the way, NATO
opened a brutal 78-day campaign of “humanitarian bombing” of
Yugoslavia. The physical destruction of what was left of a united Yugoslavia
was followed by a U.S.-NATO destabilization program that used George
Soros’ “Open Society” as well as the National Endowment for
Democracy, the CIA and other government assets.
The campaign ended with a coup that toppled the government of Slobodan
Milosevic in September 2000 and ended with the sovereign nation of Yugoslavia
broken into pieces. NATO kidnapped, incarcerated and tried Milosevic on phony
war-crimes charges. As he was successfully finishing his defense against these
charges, Milosevic finally died under suspicious circumstances in a prison near
The Hague once used by Nazi occupiers of the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, U.S., German and other imperialist firms privatized and grabbed up
the most profitable parts of the Serbian economy.
Then NATO went to work with a vengeance on Eastern Europe and the former USSR.
As one British foreign policymaker said, Yugoslavia was “the foot in the
door.” (Sean Gervasi, “Why is NATO in Yugoslavia,” NATO
in the Balkans, IAC). NATO expanded its influence into Bulgaria, the Czech
Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and
Slovakia, all formerly part of the socialist camp. And last March the U.S.
Senate approved NATO membership for Georgia and the Ukraine, even if NATO
itself has not.
The Western NATO countries under U.S. leadership have expanded NATO to put the
resources and people of all of the new countries of the former USSR, Eastern
Europe and Asia within their reach.
Most European and Canadian workers are wary of NATO’s military
expansionism and people in Canada and Quebec will be demonstrating Oct. 27
against the Canadian military adventure in Afghanistan. They are not happy to
supply their youths as cannon fodder, nor to pay for this militarism. In the
U.S. the anti-war forces are more concerned with direct U.S.
intervention—in places like Iraq and Afghanistan—than with NATO
expansion as such.
NATO’s new best friends in Eastern Europe
The Wars against Afghanistan and Iraq are part of NATO strategy. Opposition to
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq makes recruitment for soldiers from Western
European NATO countries like England and the Netherlands difficult, as well as
in Canada.
NATO managers look to the new puppet states in Eastern Europe and the former
USSR for support. The governments of Slovakia and Poland have volunteered their
children to fight and die for NATO expansionism, and Georgia’s
lackeys-in-waiting have volunteered their youth.
As in the rest of the former socialist republics, unemployment, violent cuts in
social services, low wages and an impoverished peasantry make poor Eastern
European youth available as cannon fodder for the deadly Afghan and Iraq
wars.
The Associated Press on Oct. 21 reported that former CIA director and current
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Kiev in the Ukraine to attend
meetings of the Southeast European Defense Ministers, a 12-nation group created
in 1996, at Washington’s initiative, to reinforce “security
cooperation in the volatile Balkans and to facilitate cooperation with
NATO.”
In the Czech Republic the majority of the people, also fearful of US/NATO
expansion in the region, have opposed the proposed plan to place an advanced
radar in their country as part of a proposed “European arm of the U.S.
missile defense system that is now based mainly in Alaska and
California.”
Gates was meeting in Kiev with defense ministers from Croatia, Albania and
Macedonia “to discuss progress they have made toward satisfying NATO
requirements for earning an invitation to join the alliance.” (AP, Oct.
21)
Meanwhile, Polish soldiers are currently stationed in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria,
Kosovo and Bosnia. In Afghanistan the Polish contingent numbers 1,200, and NATO
is recruiting Bulgarian warships to patrol the Black Sea and the Eastern
Mediterranean. (Focus News Agency, Bulgaria, Oct. 19)
NATO powers in Europe and North America met in Norway during the week of Oct.
22 to form a strategic military partnership which would stretch from the
Barents Sea to the Black Sea. (Focus News, Oct. 22)
And Israel is enthusiastically welcoming NATO inclusion. Since last year, the
Israeli government has been in a bilateral cooperation program between Israel
and NATO, the first for a country outside of Europe. (Jerusalem Post, Oct.
21)
Resisting NATO expansion
In July, people in and around the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odessa pitched
tents for days, protesting against military NATO war games. (Voice of Russia,
July 9).
Massive opposition plagues the NATO stooges in their capitals. Only 16 percent
of the Ukrainian population supports NATO membership (Herald Tribune, July 10,
2006) and open resistance to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s
government throughout that country makes these two nations shaky allies for the
U.S. and the Western European imperial powers.
Russia has expressly opposed the “financial and political engagement of
the U.S. in Georgia and the Ukraine or the planned radar stations in East
Europe,” according to Professor Alexander Krylov of the University of
Bremen. (Islamic Republic News Agency, Oct. 20).
People in the Czech Republic and Poland have demonstrated again and again in
opinion polls and protests against their countries’ involvement in NATO.
A conference on Oct. 20, which included activists from Europe and North
America, opposed to the deployment of a U.S. radar station in the Czech
Republic. The deputy speaker of the Czech Parliament’s lower house,
Voiteh Filipp, said an overwhelming majority of Czechs opposed the radar
station and demanded a national referendum on the issue. (Voice of Russia, Oct.
20)
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has called NATO an “illegitimate
alliance. ... We made a deal with the USA—we break off the Warsaw Pact
and you dissolve NATO.” (Makfax, Macedonia, July 20). The U.S. reneged on
the deal. A U.S./NATO demonization campaign has targeted Lukashenko because he
has refused to privatize his economy and is still providing jobs and social
services in the former USSR republic.
Part II to come: Brzezinski’s worst nightmare. Thanks to the work of
Rick Rozoff, administrator of the listserv: STOPNATO, for making much of this research available.
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