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Mumia Abu-Jamal: Say ‘NO’ to NATO

Published Jun 8, 2012 8:53 PM

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s speech played at the anti-NATO protests in Chicago on May 20.

In Chicago, long known as “the Windy City,” people are witnessing mega gales of wind as NATO comes to town.

NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, will doubtless blather about world peace and international security, but, in truth, it’s all wind.

They speak peace, but they are a weapon of war for the imperialist nations, a weapon against the Arab, African and Asian world, a tool of the world’s bankers.

They are a relic of the Cold War, and were originally designed to contain and constrain the old Soviet Union. But now, with the Soviet Union but a mere memory, they are an instrument of the West to interfere in what were once called Third World nations — like Libya.

In Libya, because of their antipathy for the remnants of Arab socialism, they launched over 100,000 airstrikes against the Jamahirya [state of the masses] government, and tens of thousands of sorties. Thousands of Libyans were bombed and killed, all in an effort to drive out the government of Moammar Gadhafi — long seen as a thorn in the side of the West.

NATO is a tool of the bankers, the oil companies and the financiers who have long fancied the fabulous natural resources of Libya — such as oil and water.

They use the rhetoric of humanitarianism, but it’s the same old greed and colonialism that fueled hundreds of years of exploitation and puppetism that has ever been at the bottom of their military intervention in the East.

For few governments have been more repressive than the Saudis, where — to this day! — it is a crime for a woman to drive a car. Where — even according to U.S. State Dept. reports — countless Saudis are subjected to government torture and brutality on the whim of princes. But the Saudi state is an ally of the oil companies; hence they are untouchable.

I say to the Peoples Summit “Say ‘No!’ to NATO!” Let us all move beyond this relic of the distant past, and stop supporting it as a proxy for corporate-funded wars!

Years ago, France, proud of its national independence and sovereignty, detached itself from NATO military command. This was in 1966. It took a rightist, conservative French President Nicolas Sarkozy to later reattach France to NATO adventures in Africa.

But, just days ago, the French people fired “Sarko” from power, and elected a leftist government.

It’s time we-the People pulled the plug from NATO. Its time has passed.

The Cold War is long over.

There is no real need for such a dangerous instrument, and the temptation for any politician to employ NATO for brief electoral gains, to make mischief for votes, is simply too great. Sarkozy, a cunning politician, tried to use NATO strikes against Libya to shore up his nationalist cred at home. That same tactic worked for George W. Bush (twice!)

It did not work for Monsieur le Ancient President Nicolas Sarkozy.

It’s time for this tool to be returned to the tool box — and for that box to be locked — forever. So ”Say ‘No!’ to NATO!”

Just as the United Nations was used by the so-called U.N. Security Council to wage an unjust and illegal war against Iraq for over a decade, and to wreak bloody, unholy havoc in Afghanistan, NATO has been an instrument of global capital to punish and provoke the bête noir of the month.

How many tens of thousands of men, women and children have perished in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, in Somalia since the temper tantrum spawned by 9/11? Over a million?

A million people, dead, because of a lie (weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, etc.). Because the U.S. wanted to appear “strong”?

The sad truth is that the U.N. failed the international community. The U.N. failed the peoples of the world. And unlike the U.N., NATO was formed ideally, to keep peace, not to wage war.

What we are witnessing isn’t the “international law” — but International Lawlessness! Wars which shatter nations, in pursuit of phantoms, on pretexts, on theories, on power — on lies.

That feature of international relations has to be tossed into the trash can of history — forever! Let us all resolve, here at the Peoples Summit, 2012, that NATO does not represent us, nor the vast majority of the People of this Earth. NATO is an impediment to peace, and an instrument of war.

Its time has passé.

So just “Say ‘No!’ to NATO!”

“We are the 99%!”

“Somos el noventa-y-nueve por ciento!”

So SAY NO TO NATO!