Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

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Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby conniption » Tue Apr 22, 2014 7:05 pm

Stop NATO...Opposition to global militarism.
War is a crime, for which victory brings no atonement – Anatole France


“Win Decisively”: Pentagon Deploys Ground Forces To Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

April 22, 2014

173rd deploys to provide additional training to European Allies and Partner militaries
By U.S. Army Europe Public Affairs


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WEISBADEN, Germany: Today Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby and U.S. European Command in Stuttgart Germany announced plans to deploy US Army Europe forces to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to conduct expanded land force training exercises, reinforcing our commitment to the security of our allies in the region. This move to is intended as a continued demonstration of the United States’ commitment to NATO and our collective defense responsibilities.

According to the Office of the Secretary of Defense a company-sized contingent of U.S. paratroopers from USAREUR’s 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), based in Vicenza, Italy, will arrive in Poland April 23 to begin training exercises with the Polish Army. This is the first in a series of expanded U.S. land force training activities in Poland and the Baltic region, scheduled to take place over the next several months. Additional companies from the 173rd IBCT will arrive in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia for similar exercises in the coming days.

EUCOM is increasing its land force activities in the region…These events are in addition to previously scheduled multinational land force military exercises and are aimed at assuring our regional allies of the United States’ unwavering commitment to NATO.

About us: U.S. Army Europe is uniquely positioned to advance American strategic interests across Eurasia and has unparalleled capability to prevent conflict, shape the environment and, if necessary, win decisively. The relationships we build during more than 1000 theater security cooperation events in more than 40 countries each year lead directly to support for multinational contingency operations around the world, strengthen regional partnerships, and enhance global security.

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Stephen Lendman interviews Rick Rozoff on Ukraine

April 22, 2014
http://prn.fm/progressive-radio-news-ho ... ff-041814/
Progressive Radio News Hour
April 18, 2014
Stephen Lendman interviews Rick Rozoff


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NATO Aims At Splitting, Destroying CSTO: Russian Defense Ministry

April 22, 2014

Deputy Defense Minister: NATO tries to drive wedge between Russia, CSTO allies

MOSCOW: The North Atlantic Alliance pursues its policy even in member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov opined.

“Moral pressure is being exerted and attempts are being made to convince the public that “the Russians are bad” and they should choose an orientation towards European democracy. They are talking about some kind of military-technological assistance, advisors and a larger number of joint exercises. NATO pursues the sole task of driving a wedge between Russia and its allies, detaching us from one another,” Antonov said in an interview published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Tuesday.

The deputy defense minister added that the attempt to build an equal partnership and mutually advantageous cooperation with the alliance had failed.

The Ukrainian events proved that “NATO needed us only if we held a policy convenient for it,” he argued.

“We can see that the alliance continues to mount its military presence near our borders. They kept telling us about certain camps training soldiers and officers for missions in “hotbeds” and “semi-hotbeds”. Now it is not a secret that these military units of NATO will be permanent. Whatever they may be called – bases, contingents or formations – their meaning does not change. A military potential is emerging by the Russian borders,” he said.

Russia is interested in collaboration with NATO to the degree the alliance is interested in collaboration with Moscow, Antonov said.

“If anyone thinks that Russia will rush into a project as soon as NATO crooks a finger at us, this is a profound mistake to make,” the deputy minister underscored.

That is why Russia has decided to withdraw its military representative from Brussels, he said.
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Wilfred Owen: The Parable of the Old Man and the Young
April 22, 2014
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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Wilfred Owen: Arms and the Boy and Disabled
Wilfred Owen: 1914
Wilfred Owen: Pawing us who dealt them war and madness
Wilfred Owen: Soldier’s Dream

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Wilfred Owen
Image

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and strops,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

~

The Kind Ghosts

She sleeps on soft, last breaths; but no ghost looms
Out of the stillness of her palace wall,
Her wall of boys on boys and dooms on dooms.

She dreams of golden gardens and sweet glooms,
Not marvelling why her roses never fall
Nor what red mouths were torn to make their blooms.

The shades keep down which well might roam her hall.
Quiet their blood lies in her crimson rooms
And she is not afraid of their footfall.

They move not from her tapestries, their pall,
Nor pace her terraces, their hecatombs,
Lest aught she be disturbed, or grieved at all.

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NATO Interoperability: U.S. Finishes Romanian Air War Drills

April 21, 2014

U.S. Air Forces in Europe
U.S. Air Forces Africa
April 19, 2014

US, Romanian exercise comes to a close
By Staff Sgt. R.J. Biermann
31st Fighter Wing Public Affairs


CAMPIA TURZII, Romania: The week-long bilateral training exercise between the U.S. and Romanian air forces concluded at the 71st Air Base, Campia Turzii, Romania, April 17, 2014.

The exercise, which began April 10, enhanced interoperability and readiness between the NATO partners through combined air operations between F-16 Fighting Falcons from Aviano Air Base, Italy, and MiG-21 Lancers from the 71st AB.

“Combined training with Romania demonstrates that we share a commitment to promote a peaceful and stable Europe,” said Lt. Col. Douglas Hellinger, 510th Fighter Squadron assistant director of operations and project officer for the exercise. “This exercise increased the level of cooperation between our militaries.”

U.S. and Romanian Airmen joined together in a formation during a closing ceremony held at the base, which demonstrated the partnership built during the exercise.

Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta was also in attendance.

“We welcome your friendship,” he said to the U.S. Air Force Airmen in attendance. “I came here today to praise this exercise and the importance of our partnership. Romania understands how impactful it is to us to be a partner of the U.S.”

At the ceremony, Ponta took the opportunity to discuss the benefits of the F-16, which he had the unique opportunity to co-pilot just moments before.

“I came to see the capability of the F-16 as a buyer of this unbelievable technology,” Ponta said. “The F-16 is impressive. I feel safe in the F-16 and will feel even safer come 2017.”

Romania recently signed a contract to acquire F-16s from Portugal within the next few years, a step forward in military capability.

The exercise marked the first time Team Aviano Airmen have partnered with the Romanian air force.
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Videos: NATO’s Top Military Chief Invokes Article 5 War Clause Over Russian “Military Invasion” Of Ukraine
April 21, 2014


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef9zcvXOwpc

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Operations
April 17, 2014

http://www.aco.nato.int/video-saceur-on ... ense-.aspx

http://bit.ly/1hNpTNN

http://bit.ly/1h3BZgv
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Foreign Minister: Russia Won’t Allow Civil War In Ukraine

April 21, 2014

Interfax
April 21, 2014


Lavrov: Russia to stop attempts to unleash civil war in Ukraine

MOSCOW: Russia will not allow a bloody conflict in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“There has been a surge in appeals to Russia for saving them from this outrage. We are being put into an extremely complex position,” Lavrov told a press conference in Moscow on Monday.

“Those who are deliberately pursuing a civil war, possibly, in an attempt to start a big, serious bloody conflict, are pursuing a criminal policy. And we will not only condemn this policy but will also stop it,” the minister said.
====================================================================
Interfax
April 21, 2014

Kyiv grossly violates Geneva agreements – Lavrov

MOSCOW: The current authorities in Kyiv are grossly violating the Geneva agreements reached last week at the Russia-U.S.-EU-Ukraine meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“Not only is the Geneva agreement not being complied with, but steps are being made, primarily by those who seized power in Kyiv, to grossly violate the agreements reached in Geneva,” he told a press conference responding to a question posed by Interfax.

======================================================================

Itar-Tass
April 21, 2014
Lavrov: Geneva agreement on Ukraine not fulfilled

MOSCOW: The Kiev authorities do nothing to eliminate the causes of the crisis, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday after a meeting with his colleague from Mozambique Oldemiro Baloi.

“Geneva agreements on Ukraine specify no timeframe, but measures should be taken urgently”, Lavrov stressed. The agreement is not fulfilled, first of all, by those who have seized power in Kiev, the foreign minister added.

“Everything points to the fact that the Kiev authorities are not able to control extremists, or do not want to control them,” the foreign minister said. The main thing now is to prevent any kind of violence in Ukraine, Lavrov added. “It is the first clause of the Geneva agreements, the first requirement,” the minister stressed. “This part of the Geneva agreement is not fulfilled, but on the contrary, steps are taken by those who seized power (in Kiev) in violation of the Geneva agreements,” Lavrov said.

“We are concerned that instead of confirming the responsibility for the situation, Kiev and the West-European countries are trying to make Russia responsible,” he said. “Their main proof is the Russian weapons in the conflict zones. It is ridiculous – no other weapons have ever been there,” Lavrov added.

Kiev’s statement that the Geneva decisions are not valid for Maidan are unacceptable, the diplomat noted.

“The buildings in Kiev, which have been seized by force in the beginning of the events in Ukraine, are not freed now, the streets remain blocked, the ‘Maidan’ continues to boom,” the foreign minister said. “The leadership appointed by the Verkhovna Rada, say openly the Geneva decisions are not valid for ‘Maidan’, because, as they say, Kiev’s municipal administration had decided ‘Maidan’ may remain and it is legitimate. This is absolutely unacceptable,” Lavrov stressed.

“Those who intentionally aim at instigating a civil war obviously hope to spark off an enormous, serious and bloody conflict, are conducting a criminal policy,” Lavrov said. “We (Russia) will not be only condemning this policy, but thwarting any manifestations of such policy as well,” the diplomat said, adding that “shooting at unarmed people on the Easter night is beyond any reason.”

“Instead of giving ultimatums and threatening us with sanctions, Washington should realize in full measure its responsibility for those people they brought to power in Kiev,” Lavrov noted. “Attempts to isolate Russia are absolutely prospectless, as it is impossible,” the minister emphasized.

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Lilika Nakos: “Surely God didn’t intend this butchery”
April 21, 2014
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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Lilika Nakos: The dead man, the living, the house; all were smashed to bits
Lilika Nakos: The grandmother’s sin

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Lilika Nakos
From The Children’s Inferno (1946)
Translated by Allan Ross Macdougall

“‘I’ve lived my life, Kyra Argyros. The children have got to live theirs.’

“‘You’ve got to live your life, too. My man was saying that just by living and letting others see you does them good. They understand that goodness isn’t dead on earth.’

“‘Be quiet, Kyra Argyros, you’re exaggerating. I wish I had lots to give, something to everybody. To be kind only requires a little will, just a little, then goodness comes of itself.’

“‘That’s true! but men don’t want to be kind,’ said the neighbor. ‘Look how they’re killing one another, bringing Hell on earth. They drag young men from their mothers’ arms and send them into the butchery. When I get to thinking of all the poor mothers all over the world, I weep; I weep. I don’t think the world’s badly planned, for surely God didn’t intend this butchery.’”


continued - http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/
conniption
 
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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby conniption » Thu May 01, 2014 1:44 am

RIA Novosti

INTERVIEW:

NATO ‘Anachronistic Nightmare’ and Should Be Disbanded – US Politician

Image
Dennis Kucinich

© East News
April 9, 2014


MOSCOW, April 9 (RIA Novosti) – In an interview with RIA Novosti, veteran US politician Dennis John Kucinich – who twice ran for president and served in the US Congress for 16 years – shared his vision of the role that NATO and its member states play in political crises of global significance, including the ongoing unrest in Ukraine and the civil war in Syria.

First of all I'd suggest discussing recent events in eastern Ukraine.
Crowds of pro-Russian demonstrators stormed government buildings Sunday in two major cities of the region. Is it fair to say that this is the people's reaction to the coup in Kiev?


First of all everyone knows the junta in Kiev was installed by a coup and that you have nationalists, neo-Nazis who came to power as a result of that coup. One of the first things that happened was linguistic rights were attacked. And the population which had used the Russian language was suddenly aware the Russian language was under attack. And this of course created a backlash.

You know, when you have a country where so many people have Russian as their first language, this was something that threw a lot of fear into people. And who is going to protect the rights of people to be able to assert their cultural identity? That's really the question here. And that's why the people in Crimea voted not just to be formally considered part of the republic, but they also voted to protect their cultural identity. Because that was one of the things that was under attack.

But there is a much larger question here. As we speak, you have NATO training Right Sector. Now they are being brought into the military and trained with heavy weapons, and this can only be to engage in very violent military confrontation. This is very bad. And what is ominous is that we are speaking about neo-Nazis.

Why does the US not pay enough attention to the new Ukrainian government's close ties with radical groups?

I think that there is a lack of understanding in the United States of the significance of the neo-Nazis coming to power. Because anyone who is familiar with the history of World War II knows that Russia lost 30 million people. Anyone who is familiar with the battle of Moscow knows that two million people put their lives on the line to defend the city. And the memorial which is on the road from Sheremetyevo into Moscow of those tank barriers serve as a grim reminder of the millions of Russians who put their lives on the line to defend the city and the country against Nazis.

Russians did not give their lives so that 70 years later neo-Nazis could come to power, who were trained by NATO to attempt to camp out on the Russian border in Ukraine. That's simply not acceptable. And this lack of historical understanding is at the center of the inability to understand Russia's response to these recent events.

I pointed out as you’ve probably read, I was one of the first people in the West who actually dissected the so-called trade agreement that Yanukovych was being forced to sign. And I pointed out that it was actually a military agreement masked as a trade agreement that enabled NATO to go to the Russian border. And this of course has been NATO's dream, its justification for its existence. The only problem is that it's historically out of context. NATO doesn't really have a legitimate reason for a continued existence. So they are trying to create one by participating in this series of events which have captured the entire world's attention.

But people have to understand that what we are seeing here goes back to World War II and that for some people connected to NATO World War II is not over. Look at the people who were running NATO military operations in 1961 and their own connections to the Nazis. You have to ask yourself what's going on.

Some people think that this is just a continuation of the Cold war. No. This is a continuation of a hot war, of one of the worst tragedies the world had ever seen: World War II. There was a general who was, if I remember correctly, who was a Nazi chief of land forces that carried out operation Barbarossa and he ended up as a military chief of NATO appointed in April of 1961.

So when you look at this, for certain NATO elements, World War II never ended. When you have openly pro-Nazis who are rising in power, who are being given participation in a national army, Russia has every right to be concerned. And the US, our leaders, need to bone up on our history to understand what is at stake here. This whole conflict is not necessary.

And you know, there are many other elements to it, there are other outcomes that deal with trade, energy markets, currency. But the key to understanding this is to understand the suffering of the Russian people and the Ukrainian people at the hands of the Nazis in WWII.

And this whole exercise – which has been dressed as an attempt to give the people of Ukraine benefits of association with the European community – is in no way going to benefit the people of Ukraine, even given the trade agreement that Yanukovych rejected. There were no guarantees for the Ukrainian people of being able to get jobs in the EU. It's very clear the EU doesn't want Ukraine. The economy of Ukraine is in shambles. Not because of Russia but because of kleptocrats who have taken advantage of the people of Ukraine. You know – having high office there is like a license to steal.

Do you believe that the United States government was funding some of the violent rebel groups in Ukraine who overran the country?

What we know is this. It's on the record that the US sent $5 billion to help various groups in Ukraine. We know that USAID resources were involved. We know that the National Endowment for Democracy, which was involved in so many orange revolutions, was involved in these efforts.

Do we know that any of that money went to Right sector? I don't know. But try to imagine when billions of dollars are pouring into the streets, that this money does not end up in the hands of people who are violent.

The people in Ukraine had legitimate grievances against their government. And many people were sincere. The unemployment, low wages, the conditions in Ukraine have been very bad for people. So of course they are going to go and gather in a place where historically Ukrainians had come together to express their concern about what's going on in their country.

But what’s happening now is that these violent neo-Nazis effectively surfed that moment and used it to gain control of a number of seats in the cabinet, including those which are very security sensitive. So of course Russia would be concerned about that. Every country has its own interest.

And US policy which is guided by military, and by energy interest, and economic interest is sometimes just plain wrong. And this is an example. I don't think that President Obama is looking for any kind of military showdown with Russia. I do think that NATO is trying to justify its existence.

You know NATO's last big exercise was in Libya, which was a total disaster. What's NATO about? The North Atlantic is not on the Russian border, not on the Chinese border. And that's what we come to – NATO is an anachronism.

And because it's an anachronism it is trying to see how it can justify its existence by interposing itself in a conflict and stirring it up. Otherwise it wouldn't be training Right sector troops right now or bringing them into the military. This idea that somehow Kiev, and Washington, and NATO are going to tame Right sector is a myth. That is not happening.

There is a split between the new Ukrainian government and some radical groups. Is it possible to provide weapons for Ukraine under these circumstances?

I disagree with my friend Senator McCain. Because as we speak, Right Sector is getting access to heavy weaponry through NATO and being trained. That's very dangerous. And the government in Kiev, the junta rather in Kiev, has the idea that they are going to bring the Right Sector to work in the National guard on domestic matters, to bring them into the Ukrainian military.

But they are talking about the most violent people who helped to precipitate street violence. It again brings up a spectrum of things that came out of Nazi Germany and World War II. We need to be very careful not to continue to inflame this crisis because Russian-speaking people, particularly those in east, see the rise of neo-Nazis and feel a threat to their cultural identity.

How would you comment on Kiev's cooperation with foreign private security firms, such as Greystone?

We saw in Iraq how private security forces can get out of control. Whenever you are in a politically sensitive, a militarily sensitive situation, the last thing you want is private security out there, because they can actually profit by an expanded conflict.

They can stir up a war and then profit from it. And then they can leave and take their money with them. I'm totally opposed to private armies being involved in any actions anywhere. If oligarchs want to hire people to protect them, they have a right to do that.

But if nations bring in private armies you are looking at combustible material here because there is no control. The private armies will pursue private interests. Which is what they do, because they are private. They don't care about anything except making more money. And the more war there is, the more money they make. And when they walk away from carnage and all the dead bodies of people whose homes and lives have been destroyed, they go right to the bank. That's not acceptable.

Does Washington have any influence over them? Does the administration realize that these companies' actions can trigger a civil war?

It can set terms that establish that the armies will not receive any aid in any Western organization. They can set these terms. You know the only money that Ukraine is getting right now is from the IMF. Who is paying these private armies? And the IMF of course is going to make life even more miserable for the people of Ukraine. So you should ask who is paying these private armies. I don't know yet, but if it’s somebody in the West, that's a provocation. There is no control. And provocation leads to escalation.

Is it in the interest of the United States to impose further sanctions on Russia? Can Obama find any compromise or will it be hard for him to withstand the pressure of neoconservative groups?

Well, I think we first have to say that sanctions are counterproductive. Russia is going to defend itself against neo-Nazis no matter what kind of sanctions Washington puts up. And in addition to that, Russia has already demonstrated a willingness to firm up other alliances, with China for example, and move to establish new energy markets.

What's happening in the US by the way is that US is undertaking an unprecedented increase in the production of natural gas through a process called fracking, which is environmentally very damaging. We've done this in the name of energy independence. We've ended up with a tremendous surplus of natural gas, so much that a number of terminals have been built for the export of that natural gas.

The US energy interests are seeking new markets. The cutting off of Russia's access to Europe happens at a time when US energy interests are seeking new markets. That's a fact. So what will happen? The surplus of the natural gas that exists in the US right now, which is supposed to be our key to energy independence, is going to end up being sold to the EU at a high price. And the EU is encouraged to begin to frack. And energy prices in the US will go up because the supply will become artificially low as a result of the exports.

In the meantime, Russia understands that it's not going to play the game and it's going to seek other markets. But what's going to happen – the people in Ukraine will pay more for gas, for fuel, the people in Europe will pay more for fuel, and the people in the US will pay more.

What's this about? When you look at this all of Europe will end up increasing their arms budgets, the US will end up increasing arms budgets, and NATO will get more money. This is a racket. And any trade agreement that Ukraine signs will not end up benefiting the people of Ukraine. It will open markets for goods from Europe.

How do you assess US media coverage of the crisis? Why has US media not paid attention to claims the opposition was behind sniper fire in Kiev?

First of all it's generally accepted that people who stir things up can be found in the escalation of any crisis. This is how out-groups become in-groups, how they come to power. And the fact that there wasn't a thorough investigation of the fact that police and demonstrators have been shot – it's astonishing that it hasn't been pursued what's happened.

And a prevailing approach in the US has been to feed a narrative that ignored the fact that a coup took place, that ignored the fact that neo-Nazis came to power, that ignored the fact that there was evidence that people were shooting both police and demonstrators at the same time in order to stir up a conflict in Kiev. Because the focus is on a cartoon version of events which feed old Cold War narratives, which should have been discarded when the War came down.

Was it Washington’s ultimate goal to replace Yanukovych when the situation got out of control?

A State Department official was caught on tape before the coup stating exactly who would be put in power. How did that happen? It was already decided that Yanukovych was going to be out. It was decided when he refused to sign a six-thousand-page agreement that did not benefit Ukraine, that put NATO on Russia's border.

And that essentially was the end of the attempt of the Ukrainian people to have any kind of neutrality on these issues. Then you end up with Yatsenyuk, but even he has been careful about how far he can go. There will be an election. But no matter what the election brings, the fact that you have Ukraine being a staging ground for a contest between interests – that was precipitated by the West – you have to understand that the last people who can benefit from it are the people of Ukraine.

And this is a tragedy. One that was preventable. And one that does not have to escalate. Because I don't think that the Obama administration really wants to escalate this. And the people who are pushing for escalation in this country are the same people who took us into Iraq, who took us into Afghanistan and into Libya, all disasters that have to a great extent hurt the American people.

We need to rebuild, we need to make an effort to rebuild our relationship with Russia. We need a better understanding of the people of Russia and of their history. We need to stop playing Cold War games. And we need to treat each other with respect and stop the rhetoric which is designed to humiliate people.

Why does Europe, remembering the atrocities of World War II, support radical groups? Why does it support sanctions which can damage its own economy?

There is a combination of things going on here. One is that the US has been pushing. NATO has had a great influence. If you look at the member nations it coincides closely with the EU. So you have some of the same interest groups who are involved.

But I think that European leaders as NATO escalates have to be very concerned that ultimately their interests are going to be affected. If this crisis continues to escalate, it will have an impact on every single country in the European Union. And not just in terms of damage to the economy, but in higher prices – creating security problems which did not have to happen.

We need to expect that our political leadership will come to an understanding that we can no longer participate in the power politics of old. Look, Russia and the US have painstakingly built a friendship after experiencing a period of mistrust and potential for conflict.

We've forgotten the Cuban missile crisis? I haven't forgotten how as a child I and other children were sent to drills which we called “duck and cover” because we were taught that there was going to be a nuclear attack on America from Russia…

We have to find a way to reestablish a strong relationship, and the only way you can do it is through respect, knowing the strength that each country has in order to understand that we should not be about one country trying to dominate another.

And what is the main obstacle?

NATO. It's an anachronistic nightmare. It really ought to be disbanded. It has become a protection racket. That what the mafia did in the US in the 1930s.

Would you comment on the report that Turkey could be involved in using chemical weapons in Syria to provoke a US strike?

I think once President Obama established the red line every provocateur who wanted the US in was given an incentive to do so.

There is no question that the US was being set up and I think that President Obama finally realized that. And that's why he decided not to go forward. And where this came from we don't know yet. I saw Mr. Hersh's article in the London Review of Books. And it's worth reading. And it's worth considering.

But look, how many countries began to play in Syria, began to send jihadists into Syria. And why? There is a geopolitical case here. That Russia with its base in Syria... and Russia helped to bring the world away from the brink of a conflict over Syria, Russia which has a role with Iran, that Russia has somehow been made to pay the price by the neocons whose efforts to stir up a war in Syria were deflected by Russian involvement and diplomacy.

But who was trying to set it up? Maybe Turkey was involved. I don't know that. But it's worth considering that other nations' interest come to play and this is old thinking. We have to stop pretending that anyone is going to build an empire any more. No one can afford it. That's the bottom line. People have enough trouble managing their own affairs. The USSR is not going to be reconstructed. The British Empire is not going to be reconstructed. And frankly we are learning in the US the cost of empire building. We can't afford it any more. This is a time for diplomacy and a time for de-escalation.

This is also a time for understanding history. Because Crimea was not the Sudetenland. The Russian troops were already in Sevastopol. And they were there because of a treaty. We have to understand history here.

When I took my first trip to Russia 30 years ago and I went down the road between airport and the city I saw those tank barriers set up there as a memorial. That's a lesson. We must not forget the suffering of the Russian people and the Ukrainian people, we must not forget the role that the Nazis played trying to crush Russia. This was Hitler's plan and he did not succeed.

And it was the US and Russia which ultimately stopped Hitler's plan from being realized. We don't forget the price that Americans paid. And we don't forget the price that Russians paid. And it's absolutely wrong for anybody connected with America to in any way, shape or form help for neo-Nazis to come to power so that they can be aggressive against Russia. In America we believe in freedom and we cannot let these people, who want to destroy freedom, gain as a result of some geopolitical game.

The Office of Inspector General has identified significant vulnerabilities in the management of contract file documentation that could expose the State Department to substantial financial losses. In your opinion, is it just a bureaucratic issue or could it be evidence of corruption?

Any time money is missing in the government it goes somewhere; it goes into somebody's hands. No one is maintaining this is an accounting problem. It's a problem of accountability. The question is whose hands does it go into. What purpose has it been used for. That's the question. And that has not been determined yet. As a member of Congress I saw many occasions in which billions of dollars had not been accounted for.

When you have a nation that is spending trillions, a billion might not seem like a lot of money, but it is a lot of money. And when the State Department cannot account for money, we have to ask for what purpose it was directed.

Any time you are responsible for billions of dollars you have to say where the money is going. And when it disappears it's a huge problem. I mean – was it stolen, was it misappropriated, was it misdirected?

The American people are already paying too much in taxes. And every taxpayer has to be concerned about this. People are taxed heavily and when they see that kind of money disappear they become alarmed, they have every reason to be upset. We are cutting back a number of programs for social welfare and at the same time billions of dollars can disappear from the State Department account. Unbelievable!

What can the US and Russia do to overcome disagreements and improve relations?

As a member of Congress I traveled to Russia many times to meet with officials and to try to develop relationships, I worked with the Russian and American Chamber of Commerce to try to find ways in increasing commercial exchanges. I worked to build relationships and friendship.

And when I look at this I'm very concerned about relationships here which have been destroyed. We don't need to idealize each other. Each nation has its own challenges and own problems. But there needs to be respect and that's been lost. And that's a problem.

I'm continuing to write about this, to speak out whenever I have an opportunity, because what I see happening here is a totally unnecessary escalation of a conflict in which there will be no winners. We have to go back to working diplomatically.

I think it's very important to talk to you. I've served 16 years in the US Congress, I ran for the Democratic nomination on two occasions and I've been a very vocal supporter of diplomacy and of “strength through peace” and I continue to do so.

Hopefully this period is not going to escalate, but it's dangerous. People in Russia need to understand that there are some people in the US who know exactly what's going on, so that they know that not everybody here is just getting swept up in propaganda. I believe very strongly in the importance of a good relationship between Russia and the US.

Dennis John Kucinich is a former U.S. Representative from Ohio, serving from 1997 to 2013. He was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections.
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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Thu May 01, 2014 1:37 pm

Great interview, thank you.

But people have to understand that what we are seeing here goes back to World War II and that for some people connected to NATO World War II is not over. Look at the people who were running NATO military operations in 1961 and their own connections to the Nazis. You have to ask yourself what's going on.

Some people think that this is just a continuation of the Cold war. No. This is a continuation of a hot war, of one of the worst tragedies the world had ever seen: World War II. There was a general who was, if I remember correctly, who was a Nazi chief of land forces that carried out operation Barbarossa and he ended up as a military chief of NATO appointed in April of 1961.


His memory fails him there: Dirk Stikker, despite the awesome Movie Bad Guy Name, was from the Netherlands. Him memory fails him accurately, though, because he was indeed appointed to NATO in April of 1961.

The first German to be appointed was Manfred Worner, who was around 10 years old when Operation Barbarossa was executed -- but Ze Germans are a precocious lot, so best not to assume innocence there.

Good background piece on the "Nazis in NATO" issue ==> http://www.voltairenet.org/article174656.html
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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby Harvey » Thu May 01, 2014 8:39 pm

Some good material here in relation to the Hersh article referred to above: http://wallofcontroversy.wordpress.com/ ... our-hersh/

And: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m- ... e-rat-line
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby conniption » Mon May 12, 2014 4:09 am

Japan Focus

The NATO Afghanistan War and US-Russian Relations: Drugs, Oil, and War

Peter Dale Scott

Preface


I delivered the following remarks at an anti-NATO conference held in Moscow on May 15, 2012. I was the only North American speaker at an all-day conference, having been invited in connection with the appearance into Russian of my book Drugs, Oil, and War. 1 As a former diplomat worried about peace I was happy to attend: as far as I can tell there may be less serious dialogue today between Russian and American intellectuals than there was at the height of the Cold War. Yet the danger of war involving the two leading nuclear powers has hardly disappeared.

Unlike other speakers, my paper urged Russians -- despite the aggressive activities in Central Asia of the CIA, SOCOM (US Special Operations Command), and NATO -- to cooperate under multilateral auspices with like-minded Americans, towards dealing with the related crises of Afghan drug production and drug-financed Salafi jihadism.

Since the conference I have continued to reflect intensely on the battered state of US-Russian relations, and my own slightly utopian hopes for repairing them. Although the speakers at the conference represented many different viewpoints, they tended to share a deep anxiety about US intentions towards Russia and the other former states of the USSR. Their anxiety was based on shared knowledge of past American actions and broken promises, of which they (unlike most Americans) are only too aware.

A key example of such broken promises was the assurance that NATO would not take advantage of détente to expand into Eastern Europe. Today of course Poland and other former Warsaw Pact members are members of NATO, along with the former Baltic Soviet Socialist Republics. And there are still proposals on the table to expand NATO into the Ukraine – i.e. the very heart of the former Soviet Union. This push was matched by U.S. joint activities and operations – some of them under NATO auspices – with the army and security forces of Uzbekistan. (Both these initiatives began in 1997, i.e. in the Clinton administration.)

Image

There are other broken agreements, such as the unauthorized conversion of a Russian-approved UN Force for Afghanistan in 2001 into a force under the direction of NATO. Two speakers complained that America’s determination to locate a missile shield system against Afghanistan in Eastern Europe (rebuffing Russia’s suggestion that it be placed of in Asia) constituted “a threat to world peace”.

The speakers saw these measures as aggressive extensions of the old American drive under Reagan to destroy the Soviet Union. Some of the conferees I spoke to see Russia as having been threatened for two decades after World War Two by active US and NATO plans for a nuclear first strike against Russia, before it could gain nuclear parity. While obviously these plans were never implemented, those I spoke with were sure that the ultras who desired them have never abandoned their desire to humiliate Russia and reduce it to a third-rate power. I cannot refute this concern: my recent book American War Machine also describes a relentless push since World War Two to establish and sustain global American dominance in the world.

Conference presentations were by no means limited to criticism of US and NATO policies. The conference speakers bitterly opposed to Putin’s endorsement, as recently as April 11 of this year, of NATO’s military efforts in Afghanistan. They are particularly incensed by Putin’s agreement this year to the establishment of a NATO base in Ulyanovsk, nine hundred kilometers east of Moscow in Russia itself. Although the base has been sold to the Russian public as a way to facilitate US withdrawal from Afghanistan, one speaker assured the conference that the Ulianovsk outpost is described in NATO documents as a military base. And they resent Russia’s support of the US-inspired UN sanctions against Iran; they see Iran instead as a natural ally of Russia against American efforts to achieve global domination.

Apart from the remarks below, I was mostly silent at the conference. But my mind, almost my conscience, is heavy when I think of the recent revelations that Rumsfeld and Cheney, immediately after 9/11, responded with an agenda to remove several governments friendly to Russia, including Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran. 2 Ten years earlier the neocon Paul Wolfowitz told Gen. Wesley Clark in the Pentagon that America had a window of opportunity to remove these Russian clients, in the period of Russian restructuring after the breakup of the USSR.) 3 The agenda has not yet been completed in the case of Syria and Iran.

What we have seen under Obama looks very much like a progressive implementation of this agenda, even if we acknowledge that in Libya and now Syria Obama has shown greater reluctance than his predecessor to put US boots on the ground. (Nevertheless, under Obama, small numbers of US Special Forces were reportedly active in both countries, stirring up resistance to first Qaddafi and now Assad.)

What particularly concerns me is the relative absence of public response in America to a long-term Pentagon-CIA agenda of aggressive military hegemonism – or what I will call dominationism. 4 No doubt many Americans may think that a global pax Americana will secure a period of peace, much like the pax Romana of two millennia ago. I myself am confident that it will not: rather, like the imperfect pax Britannica of a century ago, it will lead inevitably to major conflict, possibly nuclear war. For the secret of the pax Romana was that Rome, under Hadrian, withdrew from Mesopotamia and accepted strict limits to its area of dominance. Britain never achieved that wisdom until too late; America, to date, has never achieved it at all.

And so very few in America seem to care about Washington’s global domination project, at least since the failure of massive protests to prevent the Iraq War. We have seen much critical examination of why America fought in Vietnam, and even the American involvement in atrocities like the Indonesian massacre of 1965. Authors like Noam Chomsky and William Blum 5 have chronicled America’s criminal acts since World War Two, but without any prominent concern about the recent acceleration of American military expansiveness. Only a few, like Chalmers Johnson and Andrew Bacevich, have written about the progressive consolidation of a war machine that now dominates America’s political processes.

It is also striking that, until quite recently, the nascent Occupy movement has had little to say about America’s unprovoked wars; I am not sure they have even targeted the militarization of surveillance, law enforcement, and detention camps which are so important a part of the domestic apparatus of repression that threatens their own survival 6 – the so-called “continuity of government” (COG) measures by which America’s military planners have prepared never again to have to deal with a successful American anti-war movement. 7

If I were to return to Russia I would again, as a former diplomat and as a Canadian, call for US-Russian collaboration to deal with the world’s pressing problems. The challenge is to move beyond the crude trade-off of so-called “peaceful coexistence” between superpowers a half-century ago, which in fact permitted and even encouraged the violent atrocities of client dictators like Suharto in Indonesia and Barre in Somalia. The alternative, a total breakdown of détente, seems likely to lead to increasingly dangerous confrontations in Asia, most likely over Iran,

But can this breakdown be avoided? For a week I have been wondering whether I have not perhaps been blinding myself to the realities of America’s intransigent striving towards dominance. 8 Here in London I recently met with an old friend from my diplomatic days, a senior UK diplomat and Russian expert. I was hoping that he would dissuade me from my negative assessment of US and NATO intentions, but if anything he increased them.

So I am now publishing my talk with this preface for a North American and international audience. I believe that the most urgent task today to preserve the peace of the world is to curb America’s drive towards unchallenged dominance, and to re-energize the UN’s prohibition of unilateral and preemptive wars, for the sake of coexistence in a peaceful and multilateral world.

To this end, I hope that Americans will mobilize against American dominationism, and call for a policy declaration, either from the administration or from Congress, that would

1) explicitly renounce past Pentagon calls for “full spectrum dominance” 9 as a military objective for American foreign policy,

2) reject as unacceptable the deeply-ingrained practice of preemptive wars,

3) renounce categorically any US plans for the permanent use of military bases in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Kyrgyzstan, and

4) recommit the United States to conducting future military operations in accordance with the procedures set out in the United Nations Charter.

I encourage others to join me in urging Congress to introduce a resolution to this effect. Such a resolution might not initially succeed. But it would help focus American political debate on what I consider to be a topic that is both urgent and too little examined: American expansiveness as a current threat to global peace.


Notes

1 Also invited were the Swiss researcher Daniele Ganser, author of NATO’s Secret Armies, and the Italian politician Pino Arlacchi, former head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

2 Rumsfeld initially wanted to respond to 9/11 with an attack against Iraq rather than Afghanistan, on the grounds that there were “no decent targets for bombing in Afghanistan” (Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies, 31).

3 Wolfowitz told Clark that “we’ve about five or ten years to clean up those old soviet client regimes - Syria, Iran, Iraq -- before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us” (Wesley Clark, Talk to San Francisco Commonwealth Club, October 3, 2007, link). Ten years later, in November 2001, Clark heard in the Pentagon that plans to attack Iraq were “being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, …beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan” (Wesley Clark, Winning Modern Wars [New York: Public Affairs, 2003], 130).

4 Hegemony can have a soft as well as a hard sense, connoting friendly leadership in a confederation. The American drive for unchallengeable unipolar dominance of the globe is unprecedented, and deserves a name of its own. “Dominationism” is a hideous word, replete with perverse sexual overtones. That is why I have chosen it.

5 William Blum’s most recent books are Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (2003), and Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire (2004).

6 Paul Joseph Watson, “Leaked U.S. Army Document Outlines Plan For Re-Education Camps In America,” Infowars.com, Thursday, May 3, 2012 : “The manual makes it clear that the policies also apply ‘within U.S. territory’ under the auspices of the DHS and FEMA. The document adds that, ‘Resettlement operations may require large groups of civilians to be quartered temporarily (less than 6 months) or semipermanently (more than 6 months).’”

7 See Peter Dale Scott, “Is the State of Emergency Superseding the US Constitution? Continuity of Government Planning, War and American Society,” Peter Dale Scott, "Continuity of Government' Planning: War, Terror and the Supplanting of the U.S. Constitution."

8 Two nights ago I had a vivid and unnerving dream, in which at the end I saw the opening of a conference where I would again speak as I did in Moscow. Immediately after my talk the conference agenda called for a discussion of the possibility that “Peter Dale Scott” was a fiction serving some nefarious covert end, and that no real “Peter Dale Scott” in fact existed.

9 “Full-spectrum dominance means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations” (Joint Vision 2020, Department of Defense, May 30, 2000; cf. “Joint Vision 2020 Emphasizes Full-spectrum Dominance,” U.S. Department of Defense).


Remarks at Invissin Conference on NATO, Moscow, May 15, 2012

I wish to thank the organizers of this conference for the chance to speak about the acute problem of the Afghan drug traffic, a current threat to both Russia and U.S.-Russian relations. I will discuss today the deep political perspective of my book Drugs, Oil, and War, which looks at factors underlying the international drug traffic and also U.S. interventions harmful to the interests of both the Russian and American people. I will also talk about the role of NATO in facilitating strategies for U.S. hegemony in Asia. But first I want to look at the drug traffic in the light of an important factor that is prominent in my book: the role of oil in U.S. policies for Asia, and also the role of the major international U.S.-aligned oil companies, including BP.

Oil has been a deep driving force behind all recent U.S. and NATO offensive actions: one has only to think about Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, and Libya in 2011.1

My book studies the role of oil companies and their representatives in Washington (including lobbies) in all of the major U.S. interventions since Vietnam in the 1960s.2 The power of U.S. oil companies may need a little explanation to an audience in Russia, where oil companies are controlled by the state. In America the relationship is almost reversed: oil companies tend to dominate both U.S. foreign policy and also the U.S. Congress.3 This explains why presidents from Kennedy to Reagan to Obama have been powerless to limit the oil industry’s special tax break called the oil depletion allowance, even now when most Americans are sinking deeper into poverty.4

The underlying cause of U.S. activity in Central Asia, in traditional areas of Russian influence like Kazakhstan, lies in the heightened interest of western oil companies and their representatives in Washington, for three decades or longer, in developing and above all controlling the underdeveloped oil and gas resources of the Caspian basin.5 To this end Washington has developed policies that have produced forward bases in Kyrgyzstan and for four years in Uzbekistan (2001-05).6 The overt purpose of these bases was to support U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. But the U.S. presence also encourages the governments in nearby Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, both areas of U.S. oil and gas investment, to act more independently of Russian approval.

Washington serves the interest of western oil companies, not just because of their corrupt influence over the administration, but because the survival of the current U.S. petro-economy depends on western domination of the global oil trade. A passage in Drugs, Oil, and War describes this policy, and how it has contributed to recent American interventions, and also the impoverishment of the Third World since 1980. In essence, the U.S. handled the quadrupling of oil prices in the 1970s by arranging, by means of secret agreements with the Saudis, for the recycling of petrodollars back into the U.S. economy. The first of these deals assured a special and on-going Saudi stake in the health of the U.S. dollar; the second secured continuing Saudi support for the pricing of all OPEC oil in dollars.7 These two deals assured that the U.S. economy would not be impoverished by OPEC oil price hikes. The heaviest burdens would be borne instead by the economies of less developed countries.8

The U.S. dollar, weakening as it is, still depends largely on the OPEC policy of demanding U.S. dollars for payment of OPEC oil. Just how strongly America will enforce this OPEC policy can be seen by the fate of those countries that have chosen to challenge it. “Saddam Hussein in 2000 insisted Iraq's oil be sold for euros, a political move, but one that improved Iraq's recent earnings thanks to the rise in the value of the euro against the dollar."9 Three years later, in March 2003, America invaded Iraq. Two months after that, on May 22, 2003, Bush by executive order decreed that Iraqi oil sales would be returned from euros to dollars.[10]

Shortly before the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya, Qaddafi, according to a Russian article, initiated a movement, like Saddam Hussein’s, to refuse the dollar for oil payments.11 Meanwhile Iran, in February 2009, announced that it had “completely stopped conducting oil transactions in U.S. dollars.”12 The full consequences of Iran’s daring move have yet to be seen.13

I repeat: every recent U.S. and NATO intervention has served to prop up the waning dominance of western oil companies over the global oil and petrodollar system. But I believe that oil companies themselves are capable of initiating or at least contributing to political interventions. As I say in my book (p. 8 ):

There are recurring allegations that US oil companies, either directly or through cutouts, engage in covert operations; in Colombia (as we shall see) a US security firm working for Occidental Petroleum took part in a Colombian army military operation "that mistakenly killed 18 civilians.”

More relevant to Russia was a 2002 covert operation in Azerbaijan, a classic exercise in deep politics. There former CIA operatives, employed by a dubious oil firm (MEGA Oil), “engaged in military training, passed ‘brown bags filled with cash’ to members of the government, and set up an airline…which soon was picking up hundreds of mujahideen mercenaries in Afghanistan.”14 These mercenaries, eventually said to number 2000, were initially used to combat Russian-backed Armenian forces in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh; but they also backed Muslim fighters in Chechnya and Dagestan. They also contributed to the establishment of Baku as a transshipment point for Afghan heroin to both the Russian urban market and also the Chechen mafia.15

In 1993 they also contributed to the ouster of Azerbaijan’s elected first president, Abulfaz Elchibey, and his replacement by Heidar Aliyev, who then agreed to a major oil contract with BP, including what eventually became the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline to Turkey. Note that the U.S. background of the MEGA Oil operatives is unmistakable. However who financed MEGA is unclear; and may have been the oil majors, many of which have or have had their own covert services.16 There are allegations that major oil corporations, including Exxon and Mobil as well as BP, were “behind the coup d’état” replacing Elchibey with Aliyev.17

It is clear that Washington and the oil majors have a common perception that their survival depends on maintaining their present dominance of international oil markets. In the 1990s, when it was widely believed that the world’s largest unproven reserves of hydrocarbons lay in the Caspian basin of Central Asia, this region became the central focus for both corporate U.S. petroinvestment and also for U.S. security expansion.18

Clinton’s close friend Strobe Talbott, speaking as Deputy Secretary of State, attempted to put forward a reasonable strategy for this expansion. In an important speech of July 21, 1997,

Talbott outlined four dimensions of U.S. support to the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia: 1) The promotion of democracy; 2) The creation of free market economies; 3) The sponsorship of peace and cooperation ,within and among the countries of the region: and, 4) integration into the larger international community.… Inveighing against what he considers an outdated conception of competition in the Caucasus and Central Asia, Mr. Talbott admonished any who would consider the "Great Game" as a model on which to base current views of the region. He proposed, instead, an arrangement where everyone cooperates and everyone wins.19 But this multipolar approach was immediately attacked by members of both parties. Only three days later the right-wing Heritage Foundation, think-tank for the Republican Party, charged that, "The Clinton Administration -- intent on placating Moscow -- has hesitated to take advantage of the strategic opportunity to secure U.S. interests in the Caucasus."20 In October this critique was echoed in a new book, The Grand Chessboard, by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, perhaps Russia’s most important opponent in the Democratic Party. Conceding that the “ultimate objective of American policy should be… to shape a truly cooperative global community,” Brzezinski nonetheless defended for now the “great game” that Talbott had rejected. “It is imperative,” he wrote, “that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of … challenging America.”21

Meanwhile, behind this verbal debate, the CIA and Pentagon, through NATO, were developing a “forward strategy” in the area that was antithetical to Talbott’s. Under the umbrella of NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PFP) Program, the Pentagon in 1997 began military training exercises with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, as “the embryo of a NATO-led military force in the region.”22 These CENTRAZBAT exercises had in mind the possible future deployment of U.S. combat forces; and a deputy assistant secretary of defense, Catherine Kelleher, cited “the presence of enormous energy resources” as a justification for American military involvement.23 Uzbekistan, which Brzezinski singled out for its geopolitical importance, became the linchpin of U.S. training exercises, despite having one of the worst human rights records locally.24

The American sponsored “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan (March 2005) was another conspicuous product of the CIA-Pentagon forward strategy doctrine. It came at a time when George W. Bush repeatedly spoke of a “forward strategy of freedom,” and Bush later, when visiting Georgia, endorsed the changeover (more like a bloody coup d’état than a “revolution”) as an example of “spreading democracy and freedom.”25 But the new Bakiyev regime, in the words of Columbia University Professor Alexander Cooley, "ran the country like a criminal syndicate.” In particular many observers accused Bakiyev of taking over and running the local drug traffic as a family enterprise.26

Image
Bishkek Square during the “tulip revolution”

To some extent the Obama regime has retreated from the hegemonic Pentagon rhetoric of (in its words) “full spectrum dominance.”27 But it is not surprising that under Obama pressures to reduce Russian influence (e.g. in Syria) have continued. For a half century Washington has been divided between a minority (principally in the State Department, like Talbott) who have envisaged a future of cooperation with the Soviet Union, and those hegemonic hawks (principally in the CIA and Pentagon, like William Casey, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld) who have pushed for a U.S. strategy of unipolar global domination.28 The latter have not hesitated to use drug-trafficking assets in pursuit of this unattainable goal, notably in Indochina, Colombia, and now Afghanistan.29

Significantly, the hawks have used the drug eradication strategies of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) as well.30 As I wrote in Drugs, Oil, and War (p. 89),

The true purpose of most of these campaigns … has not been the hopeless ideal of eradication. It has been to alter market share: to target specific enemies and thus ensure that the drug traffic remains under the control of those traffickers who are allies of the Colombian state security apparatus and/or the CIA.31

This has been conspicuously true in Afghanistan, where the U.S. recruited former drug traffickers to join in its 2001 invasion.32 Later the U.S. announced a drug reduction strategy that was explicitly limited to attacking those drug traffickers supporting the insurgents.33

Thus those concerned (as I am) with reducing Afghan drug flows are faced with a dilemma. Effective strategies against international drug trafficking must be multilateral, and in Central Asia they will require increased U.S.-Russian cooperation. On the other hand the energies of the principal pro-U.S. forces currently on the ground there – notably the CIA, U.S. armed forces, NATO, and the DEA – have in the past been intent primarily not on cooperation but on U.S. hegemony.

The answer I believe will lie in team efforts using the expertise and resources of both countries, housed in bilateral or multilateral agencies not dominated by either. A successful drug strategy will also have to be multi-faceted, like the successful campaign in northern Thailand, and will probably require both countries to consider people-friendly strategies not yet adopted by either.34

Russia and America share many features and concerns. They are both still superstates, even if now losing preeminence in the face of a rising China. As superpowers both were tempted into Afghan adventures that many wiser heads regret. Meanwhile Afghanistan, now a ravaged country, presents urgent problems for all three superstates: the menace of drugs, and the related menace of terrorism.

The whole planet has a stake in seeing Russia and America deal with these menaces constructively and not exploitatively. And any progress made in reducing these shared threats will hopefully be another step in the difficult process of learning to consolidate peace.

The last century saw a Cold War between the US and the USSR, two superstates which both armed heavily in the name of defending their people. The USSR lost, leaving an unstable Pax Americana much like the Pax Britannica of the 19th century: that is, a dangerous mix of globalizing commerce, increasing disparity of wealth and income, and wildly excessive and expansive militarism, leading to increasing conflict (Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya), and increasing danger of a possible new world war (Iran).

To preserve its perilous dominance the US today is arming against its own people, not just in defense of them.35 All the peoples of the world, including the American, have a stake in seeing that expansive dominance reduced, towards a less militarist and more multipolar world.

Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Drugs Oil and War, The Road to 9/11, and The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War. His most recent book is American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection and the Road to Afghanistan. His website, which contains a wealth of his writings, is here http://www.peterdalescott.net/q.html

Recommended citation: Peter Dale Scott, "The NATO Afghanistan War and US-Russian Relations: Drugs, Oil, and War," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 22, No 4, May 28, 2012.


Articles on related subjects

• Peter Dale Scott, Launching the U.S. Terror War: the CIA, 9/11, Afghanistan, and Central Asia

• Peter Dale Scott, The Doomsday Project and Deep Events: JFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11

• Peter Dale Scott, Norway’s Terror as Systemic Destabilization: Breivik, the Arms-for-Drugs Milieu, and Global Shadow Elites

• Tim Shorrock, Reading the Egyptian Revolution Through the Lens of US Policy in South Korea Circa 1980: Revelations in US Declassified Documents

• C. Douglas Lummis, The United States and Terror on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11

• Peter Dale Scott, Rape in Libya: America’s recent major wars have all been accompanied by memorable falsehoods

• Peter Dale Scott, The Libyan War, American Power and the Decline of the Petrodollar System


Notes

1 Less obviously, but unmistakably, oil (or in this case an oil pipeline) was a factor also in the 1998 NATO intervention in Kosovo. See Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War, 29; Peter Dale Scott, “Bosnia, Kosovo, and Now Libya: The Human Costs of Washington’s On-Going Collusion with Terrorists, July 29, 2011, http://japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3578.

2 Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War, 8-9,11.

3 Exxon for example is said to have paid no U.S. federal income tax in 2009, at a time of near-record profits (Washington Post, May 11, 2011). Cf. Steve Coll, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), 19-20: “In some of the faraway countries where it did business,… Exxon’s sway over local politics and security was greater than that of the United States embassy.”

4 Charles J. Lewis, “Obama again urges end to oil industry tax breaks,” Houston Chronicle, April 27, 2011; “Politics News: Obama Urges Congress to End Oil Subsidies,” Newsy.com, March 2, 2012, http://www.newsy.com/videos/obama-urges ... -subsidies.

5 Cf. an article in 2001 from the Foreign Military Studies Office of Fort Leavenworth:

The Caspian Sea appears to be sitting on yet another sea—a sea of hydrocarbons. …The presence of these oil reserves and the possibility of their export raises [sic] new strategic concerns for the United States and other Western industrial powers. As oil companies build oil pipelines from the Caucasus and Central Asia to supply Japan and the West, these strategic concerns gain military implications. (Lester W. Grau, “Hydrocarbons and a New Strategic Region: The Caspian Sea and Central Asia. (Military Review [May–June 2001]. 96; quoted in Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War, 31)

6 See discussion in Peter Dale Scott, "Launching the U.S. Terror War: the CIA, 9/11, Afghanistan, and Central Asia," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, March 15, 2012, http://japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3723. There have also been diplomatic discussions of a possible U.S. base in Tajikistan: see Joshua Kucera, “U.S.: Tajikistan Wants to Host an American Air Base,” Eurasia.net, December 14, 2010, http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62570).

7 David E. Spiro, The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony: Petrodollar Recycling and International Markets (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1999), x: "In 1974 [Treasury Secretary William] Simon negotiated a secret deal so the Saudi central bank could buy U.S. Treasury securities outside of the normal auction. A few years later, Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal cut a secret deal with the Saudis so that OPEC would continue to price oil in dollars. These deals were secret because the United States had promised other industrialized democracies that it would not pursue such unilateral policies." Cf. 103-12.

8 "So long as OPEC oil was priced in U.S. dollars, and so long as OPEC invested the dollars in U.S. government instruments, the U.S. government enjoyed a double loan. The first part of the loan was for oil. The government could print dollars to pay for oil, and the American economy did not have to produce goods and services in exchange for the oil until OPEC used the dollars for goods and services. Obviously, the strategy could not work if dollars were not a means of exchange for oil. The second part of the loan was from all other economies that had to pay dollars for oil but could not print currency. Those economies had to trade their goods and services for dollars in order to pay OPEC" (Spiro, Hidden Hand, 121).

9 Hoyos, Carol & Morrison, Kevin, "Iraq returns to the international oil market," Financial Times, June 5, 2003. Cf. Coll, Private Empire, 232: “A desperate Saddam Hussein, toward the end of his time in power, had signed production-sharing contracts with Russian and Chinese companies, but these agreements had never been implemented.”

10 Scott, Road to 9/11, 190-91. Cf. also William Clark, “The Real Reasons Why Iran is the Next Target: The Emerging Euro-denominated International Oil Marker,” Global Research, 27 October 2004, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CLA410A.html.

11 “Бомбежки Ливии – наказание Каддафи за попытку введения золотого динара,” Live Journal, March 21, 2011; discussion in Peter Dale Scott, “The Libyan War, American Power and the Decline of the Petrodollar System,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus,” April 27, 2011, http://japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3522.

12 “Iran Ends Oil Transactions In U.S. Dollars,” CBS News, February 11, 2009.

13 In March 2012 Swift, the body that handles global banking transactions, moved to cut Iran's banks out of the system, in response to American and UN sanctions (BBC News, March 15, 2012). Business Week (February 28, 2012) commented that the action “might roil oil markets on concern that buyers will be unable to pay the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for its 2.2 million barrels a day of oil exports.”

14 Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11, 163-64; cf. Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War, 7.

15 Scott, The Road to 9/11, 164

16 The World War II covert operations agency OSS was thrown together in part by recruiting Asia hands from oil companies like Standard Oil of New Jersey (Esso). See Smith, OSS, 15, 211.

17 “BP oiled coup with cash, Turks claim”, Sunday Times (London), March 26, 2000; quoted in Scott, The Road to 9/11, 165.

18 In 1998, Dick Cheney, when chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, remarked: "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian" (Guardian [London], October 23, 2001, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oc ... errorism11).

19 R. Craig Nation, “Russia, the United States, and the Caucasus,” Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute. Talbott’s words are worth quoting at length: “"For the last several years, it has been fashionable to proclaim or at least to predict, a replay of the 'Great Game' in the Caucasus and Central Asia. The implication of course is that the driving dynamic of the region, fueled and lubricated by oil, will be the competition of great powers to the disadvantage of the people who live there. Our goal is to avoid and to actively discourage that atavistic outcome. ….. The Great Game, which starred Kipling's Kim and Fraser's Flashman, was very much of the zero-sum variety. What we want to help bring about is just the opposite, we want to see all responsible players in the Caucasus and Central Asia be winners." (M.K. Bhadrakumar, “Foul Play in the Great Game,” Asia Times, July 13, 2005).

20 James MacDougall, “A New Stage in U.S.-Caspian Sea Basin Relations,” Central Asia, 5 (11), 1997; quoting from Ariel Cohen, “U.S. Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia: Building A New 'Silk Road' to Economic Prosperity,” Heritage Foundation, July 24, 1997. In October 1997 Sen. Sam Brownback introduced a bill, the Silk Road Strategy Act of 1997 (S. 1344), providing incentives for the new Central Asian states to cooperate with the United States, rather than with Russia or Iran.

21 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997), xiv.

22 Ariel Cohen, Eurasia In Balance: The US And The Regional Power Shift, 107.

23 Michael Klare, Blood and Oil (New York: Metropolitan Books/ Henry Holt, 2004), 135-36; citing R. Jeffrey Smith, “U.S. Leads Peacekeeping Drill in Kazakhstan,” Washington Post, September 15, 1997. CF. Kenley Butler, “U.S. Military Cooperation with the Central Asian States,” September 17, 2001, http://cns.miis.edu/archive/wtc01/uscamil.htm.

24 Brzezinski, Grand Chessboard, 121.

25 Peter Dale Scott, “Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. and the Global Drug Problem: Deep Forces and the Syndrome of Coups, Drugs, and Terror,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus; quoting President Bush, State of the Union address, January 20, 2004; “Bush: Georgia’s Example a Huge Contribution to Democracy,” Civil Georgia, May 10, 2005. Likewise Zbigniew Brzezinski was quoted by a Kyrgyz news source as saying “I believe revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan were a sincere and snap expression of the political will” (http://eng.24kg.org/politic/2008/03/27/4973.html, March 27, 2008).

26 Scott, “Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. and the Global Drug Problem;” citing 19 Owen Matthews, “Despotism Doesn’t Equal Stability,” Newsweek, April 7, 2010 (Cooley); Peter Leonard, “Heroin trade a backdrop to Kyrgyz violence,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 24, 2010; “Kyrgyzstan Relaxes Control Over Drug Trafficking,” Jamestown Foundation, Eurasia Daily Monitor, 7:24, February 4, 2010, etc.

27 U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Vision 2020, May 30, 2000; discussion in Scott, Road to 9/11, 20.

28 U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark has reported that back in 1991 one of the neocons in the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz, told him that “we’ve about five or ten years to clean up those old soviet client regimes - Syria, Iran, Iraq -- before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us” (Wesley Clark, Talk to Commonwealth Club, October 3, 2007. Link). Ten years later, in November 2001, he heard in the Pentagon that plans to attack Iraq were “being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, …beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan” [Wesley Clark, Winning Modern Wars (New York: Public Affairs, 2003], 130).

29 See Scott, American War Machine.

30 For the hegemonic perversion of the DEA’s “war on drugs” in Asia, see Scott, American War Machine, 121-40.

31 Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War, 89.

32 An example was Haji Zaman Ghamsharik who had retired to Dijon in France, where British and American official met with him and persuaded him to return to Afghanistan (Peter Dale Scott, “America’s Afghanistan: The National Security and a Heroin-Ravaged State,” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus; citing Philip Smucker, Al Qaeda’s Great Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror’s Trail [Washington: Brassey’s, 2004], 9. For other drug traffickers, see Scott, Road to 9/11, 125.

33 Scott. American War Machine, 235 (insurgents); James Risen, “U.S. to Hunt Down Afghan Lords Tied to Taliban,” New York Times, August 10, 2009: ”United States military commanders have told Congress that... only those [drug traffickers] providing support to the insurgency would be made targets.”

34 Russia has understandably been aggrieved by America’s and NATO’s failure over a decade to deal seriously with the huge Afghan drug crop (e.g. “Russia lashes out at NATO for not fighting Afghan drug production,” RT, February 28, 2010). But the simple remedy Russia has proposed, destruction of crops in the field, would by itself probably drive peasants further into the arms of Afghanistan’s militant Islamic fundamentalists, another threat to Russia and America alike. Many observers have noted that poppy field eradication leaves the small farmers in debt to the landowners and traffickers, often having to repay “in cash, land, livestock, or – not infrequently – a daughter…. Poppy eradication just pushed them deeper into the poverty that led to their growing opium in the first place” (Joel Hafvenstein, Opium Season: A Year on the Afghan Frontier, 214); cf. “Opium Brides,” PBS Frontline). Opium eradication in Thailand, often cited as the most successful program anywhere since China’s in the 1950s, was achieved by combining military enforcement with comprehensive alternative development programs. See William Byrd and Christopher Ward, "Drugs and Development in Afghanistan," World Bank: Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction Unit, Working paper series, Vol. 18 (December 2004); also “Secret of Thai success in opium war,” BBC News, February 19, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7899748.stm.

35 See e.g. Peter Dale Scott, "Is the State of Emergency Superseding our Constitution? Continuity of Government Planning, War and American Society," Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, November 28, 2010, http:/1/japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3448.
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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby conniption » Fri May 23, 2014 5:40 pm

The Kremlin Stooge
(embedded links)

Is Paul Goble Just Pretending to be an Idiot?

Posted on May 10, 2014
by marknesop


Image
Uncle Volodya says, “The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. “

Paul Goble was a CIA analyst. Oh, I don’t need to worry about blowing his cover like happened with Valerie Plame or anything dramatic like that; it was quite a long time ago. And besides, he wants you to know. It’s in his bio. He also spent some time at the State Department, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Voice of America and a basketful of Baltic colleges and academies.

They all seem to think he’s a pretty smart guy. Well, let me tell you what. If I had a dog that wrote like Paul Goble, I’d tape his paws together with duct tape, change the password on my laptop when I knew he wasn’t looking, and he would have forgotten the word “biscuit” by the time he ever saw another one. Because Paul Goble is a black belt in Dumb Fu; the inside of his head must look like a bowl of elbows. That’s one explanation, and that’s one we can forgive, because stupid people can’t help being stupid. Another is that he’s willfully ignorant, and just keeps broadcasting the same message like a stuck record of the Moron Tabernacle Choir, because he likes the sound of it.

Or he’s pretending, for reasons of his own, to be an imbecile. Like, an undercover idiot, if you can imagine that. I ask you; after the number of times it has been pointed out – with 8×10 colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back explaining what each one is, like in Arlo Guthrie’s monologue from “Alice’s Restaurant” – that the “demographic situation at home” (in Russia) is not “worsening”, why in the name of Jesus jumped-up Johnnycake do self-styled academics and intelligentsia like Paul Goble keep writing that it is? Over and over and over, I swear to God, Diogenes must be doing wheelies in his grave.

Listen, Paul. This is like gravity – you cannot just write that something is true and make it true by wishing, if it is not true. Here, try it. Write, “I have a firm size 36C breast on my forehead, that I can squeeze whenever I am too lazy to walk upstairs and wake the wife up”. Now feel your forehead. Is there anything there? What!!! How did you spell that??? No, seriously, I’m messing with you – of course there’s nothing there; you must have known there wouldn’t be. Riddle me this, then, Paul – How can the demographic situation in Russia be “worsening” when the population is increasing, while the demographics show that Russia is still 80% ethnic Russian? What about that spells “worsening” to you? I could see it if you’d said “Ukraine”, where they’ve lost 2 million people in the last 9 years. That, right there, is a demographic situation which is hurtin’ for certain, shows no sign of reversing and is only likely to worsen in the near future. Not much helped by the self-appointed Ukrainian government in Kiev killing off its citizens like it heard there were too many, either, not to put too fine a point on it, and I cannot help but observe the lack of alarmed Goble gobbling on that reality.

Nor is this the least of the counter-intuitive Gobelesque gobshite – if only. No, as fantastic as it may sound – “fantastic” being used here as a consolidation of “holy shit, is this guy on smack or what? This is analysis?” – Goble is of the apparent opinion that Moscow (a term interchangeable with “the Kremlin” and “Putin”, just as if Moscow were not a cosmopolitan city of somewhere between 13 and 15 million but rather consisted of Putin and his cat in the Kremlin surrounded by miles of cracked mud flats in summer, and driving snow and howling wolves in winter) desperately wants a new Cold War.

He has cleverly – for him – couched it as “Why Moscow Desperately Wants a New Cold War, and Why There Isn’t and Won’t be One”, which makes it very difficult to prove “Putin” in “the Kremlin” in “Moscow” never wanted one in the first place, because like he says, there isn’t going to be one. I’ll tell you who really wants a new Cold War – NATO.


Russia under Putin has worked steadily to improve the standard of living for its citizens, with noticeable success. It has sought opportunities to showcase the improvement in the country by aggressively pursuing hosting privileges for international events such as the Formula One, the World Cup and the recently-concluded Olympic Games, assessed by many to have been excellent (including IOC President Thomas Bach), although there was a U.S. -led effort to ruin them before they started by pretending to be avid supporters of gay rights, and the mean-spiritedness which has grown to characterize official America where its pathological hate – Russia – is concerned was very much on display. In fact, American reporting showcased how female reporters have come into their own, as Danielle Weiner-Bronner and Tara Wanda Merrigan grappled in the mud for the title of bitchiest bitch of all time. Russia patiently waited 18 years to join the World Trade Organization, which already included 6 of the 16 countries rated “Worst of the Worst” for oppression, harassment and state crimes against the individual by Freedom House. Russia was not on the list. Russia has steadily sought to open itself up to foreign investment, restricting foreign ownership only in industries which are considered to affect state security.

Russia was kept out of the WTO for 18 years due to opposition from the United States, plus whatever dicksplat country (like Georgia under Mikheil Saakashvili, a pathological Russophobe who could always be counted on to jam a stick in the spokes) the U.S. could persuade to lodge a complaint, while some of the worst human rights abusers and world’s poorest countries enjoyed membership. The United States passed the Magnitsky Act, sanctioning Russian citizens without a trial on behalf of a British businessman. The USA and European Union passed an escalating series of sanctions against Russian citizens and financial institutions to punish Russia for involvement in the unrest in southeast Ukraine while such involvement remains unproven and several items offered as proof turned out to be deliberate fabrications. Yet State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki (whom Jen – hilariously – dubbed “Psaki-path”) is an almost-daily feature on television yammering that Russia is not doing enough, it must do more, we trusted it to act in good faith and instead it screwed us in the bum, maybe it’s time for more sanctions to really put them in their place. Oh, I think it’s clear who really wants a new Cold War.

Moscow wants a new Cold War, saith Goble, to divert public attention from Putin’s “disastrous economic policies”. What, you mean like moving up to world’s third-highest recipient of foreign investment? Moving up to fifth-largest economy in the world, as ranked by the World Bank? Those disastrous policies?

Meanwhile, in Goble’s America, the debt grew twice as fast as the economy last year, and now stands at a scrotum-shriveling 104% of GDP. If you were looking for some disastrous economic policies, Paul, I suggest you start looking in ever-widening circles starting at your front door. Stop when you get to Washington.

Russia is modestly increasing its defense spending, projected to grow 44% in the next three years. But it also allowed its forces to run down to a shadow of their former selves; nobody in their right mind would be able to substantiate the notion of Russia aspiring to militarily dominate the globe based on its defense spending, and in fact the Russian government has repeatedly affirmed that it is not interested in being more than a regional power. The United States, however, spends nearly 10 times what Russia does on defense despite being a substantially smaller country – Russia only recently displaced the UK, which could get lost in Russia’s vest pocket, as third-largest global spender – and spends 2.7 times more than Russia and China spend combined.

Russian diplomats and cabinet ministers in Kiev during Euromaidan? Zip, nada, not a one. Yet you couldn’t swing a dead rat on a string without hitting a Pole, a European Foreign Minister, an American senator or a U.S. State Department official during the giddy celebration of organized dissent. Vickie “Noodles” Nuland and Ukrainian U.S. ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt got caught mapping the future Ukrainian government exclusively to fit the foreign policy aims of the USA – although Washington is almost 5000 miles from Kiev while Moscow is less than 500. The Washington Post reported from Donetsk on April 17th of this year,

“At a most dangerous and delicate time, just as it battles Moscow for hearts and minds across the east, the pro-Western government is set to initiate a shock therapy of economic measures to meet the demands of an emergency bailout from the International Monetary Fund.”

Both John Kerry and the disgustingly-disappointing president he serves regularly commented on how seriously the USA and NATO took Article 5 of the NATO Charter – the one that says an attack on a NATO country is an attack on NATO – despite the fact that Ukraine is not a NATO country, and never will be so long as it persists in its position that it still owns the Crimea and will one day take it back. NATO will not entertain membership for countries with unresolved boundary disputes; it’s what scuppered Georgia’s chances, and probably is the dominant reason behind Saakashvili’s doomed lunge at Tshkinvali.

If you thought the idiocy was over, au contraire. In a departure from common sense so radical that it twisted the needle off the flabbergastatron, Goble argues, [New Cold War rhetoric] “keeps the west off balance because it prevents many in the west from seeing what he is doing and from taking the kind of steps that are necessary to stop him.” I see. Cold War rhetoric endows the instigator of it with the power to cloud men’s minds, so that they are incapable of seeing what he is doing. Well, if that isn’t just about the biggest and most spectacular piece of bullshit I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what would top it. Would you say the west focused more attention on what the Soviet Union was doing during the Cold War than at other times, or less? Do you think starting a new Cold War would cause the west to pay greater attention to what Russia was doing, or less?

There is absolutely nothing about Cold War rhetoric which would cause the west, and particularly the Russia-hating U.S. of A, to be unable to see what Putin was doing, and in fact the amount of attention and expenditure of assets to increase surveillance and monitoring of Putin’s every move and word and thought would increase dramatically.

It’s clear who wants a new Cold War. And it isn’t Russia. And contrary to Goble’s prediction, those who want it might just get it.
_______

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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby Elihu » Sat May 24, 2014 4:40 pm

Stop NATO's opposition to global militarism
But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby conniption » Sun Jun 15, 2014 3:34 am

Axis of Logic

Saying NO to NATO - it's been done before

By Umberto Pascali, Global Research
Jun 12, 2014

March 10, 1966: After 31 assassination attempts against his life, Charles De Gaulle ordered France’s withdrawal from NATO’s military integrated command. This decision was formally reversed almost half a century later under Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency. De Gaulle adopted a foreign policy independent of the Anglo-American axis.

His March 10 1966 decision, not only pertained to France’s decision to withdraw from NATO’s integrated military command, but also to remove NATO’s headquarters from French territory, thereby leading the establishment of the Alliance’s headquarters to Brussels.

In today’s World, the leaders of the EU and the Western military alliance, above all the elites of France, Germany, Italy are scared, terrorized of a potential US backlash, a reaction like the “reaction” that produced 31 assassinations attempts against the French leader.

This reaction would no doubt be forthcoming if they decided to defend the national interest of their countries, e.g by opposing the the destabilization of Ukraine and the financial looting of the EU by Wall Street and the City of London.

But this is the historical moment, in which these countries are gambling their future existence as sovereign states, and US political intimidation can be fought back. But these European leaders are corrupt and co-opted by Washington.

De Gaulle gave an example and because he challenged openly the forces that tried to kill him — and, above all, kill France as an independent and sovereign country – he won. He was able to send the occupation forces of NATO packing. He won a second Resistance after the one against Nazism.

Aldo Moro and Enrico Mattei
Also Aldo Moro, the Italian statesman, was probably concerned for his personal security when he decided to go ahead with his project of a strong “non-destabilization” government which was able to avoid what had happened in Chile with the coup against President Salvador Allende in 1973.

But Moro proceeded and there was no Chile-style coup in Italy. He paid with his life, however, in 1978 when a super sophisticated military team presenting itself as Red Brigades kidnapped him, kept him prisoner in the middle of Rome and then murdered him.

And most likely Enrico Mattei was concerned for his life when he defended Italy’s right to economic development and cheap and abundant energy against the so-called Seven Sisters – the international oil companies. He was killed in a plane crash in 1962. Today, it has been ascertained that the plane was sabotaged. Mattei concluded oil and gas deals with the countries of North Africa and Russia independently, and against the “advice” of the Seven Sisters cartel.

Alfred Herrhausen
And what about Alfred Herrhausen, the paradoxical non-monetarist banker who preached and practiced a debt cancellation for the unpayable debts of several countries? Alfred Herrhausen, the successful and brilliant German banker and economist who knew that one cannot make money from money, but one needs a real economy.

Alfred Herrausen, who prepared a Grand Plan for the development of the real economy of Eastern Europe and Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Alfred Herrhausen, who conducted a war against the monetarist speculators on two fronts, in Germany within his own Deutsche Bank and outside with the IMF, World Bank, Wall Street.

A non-existent “third generation” RAF (Baader Meinhof gang) terrorist team killed him on Nov 30 1989, in a military operation of a complexity without precedent.

The Deutsche Bank was pushed into the hands of the speculators from the City of London, typified by Merrill Lynch’s Anshu Jain who was allowed to conquer the leadership of the bank, transforming Deutsche Bank into a corrupt swamp that openly sabotaged Germany's real economy.

The political leadership of Germany, while aware of these tendencies, largely caved into accepting these financial shifts imposed by the Anglo-American banking axis. This also explains their support of the US sponsored regime in Kiev. The power of these “financial gangsters” over Germany is the real reason why Germany is paralyzed, unable to defend its basic interests and, apparently, pushed into a confrontation with its main economic partner, Russia.

De Gaulle, Herrhausen, Mattei, Moro — these leaders saved whatever is left of Europe today. This foregone European project did not include the Anglo-American financial oligarchy. As De Gaulle made clear, the Europe of independent and sovereign nations he envisioned did not include Britain, which he rightly considered as part of the Anglo-American financial cartel whose main thrust was to weaken and destabilize Europe, while undermining the so-called Franco-German alliance, which broadly prevailed until the onset of the Iraq war in March 2003.

The legacy of these leaders must now be taken up by Europe.

How De Gaulle did it his way
The author using the pen name of William Torbitt describes how De Gaulle decided to do what looked (and to many European leaders looks still today) impossible: the immediate expulsion of foreign, namely US, military forces from French soil. This was a clear example for the leaders of France, Germany, Italy on how a real leader (not a Hollywoodian caricature of a leader) acts in a moment of deep crisis for his country.

Today, Washington and London – and behind them Wall Street and the City of London – are threatening retribution against those political leaders who dare uphold the national interest of their respective countries, while also refusing to accept a confrontation with Russia and China.

These leaders are instructed by Washington to be accomplices in the process of destruction and destabilization of the European project.

From ‘The Assassination Attempt on De Gaulle’ by William Torbitt:

General De Gaulle was furious at the assassination plots and attempted assassination upon himself. He called in his most trusted officers with the French Intelligence Agency and they advised him that they were already working on the investigation to ferret out who was behind DeGaulle’s attempted assassination.

The French Intelligence Agency in a very short while completely traced the assassination attempt through Permindex, the Swiss corporation, to the Solidarists, the Fascist White Russian emigre intelligence organization and Division Five, the espionage section of the FBI, into the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels, Belgium.

French intelligence thus determined that the attempts on General De Gaulle’s life were being directed from NATO in Brussels through its various intelligence organizations and specifically, Permindex in Switzerland, basically a NATO intelligence front using the remnants of Adolph Hitler’s intelligence units in West Germany and also, the intelligence unit of the Solidarists headquartered in Munich, Germany. The overall command of the De Gaulle assassination unit was directed by Division Five of the FBI.

Upon learning that the intelligence groups controlled by the Division Five of the FBI in the headquarters of the NATO organization had planned all of the attempts of his life, DeGaulle was inflamed and ordered all NATO units off of French soils. Under the contract between France and NATO, General De Gaulle could not force them to move for a period of time somewhat exceeding one year; yet, he told NATO to get off the soil of France and put the machinery in operation to remove them within the treaty agreements with the organization.

The Defense Intelligence Agency, the intelligence arm of all armed forces in the United States and Division Five, the counter-espionage agency for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were both found to have been the controlling agencies in NATO directing the assassination attempts on De Gaulle’s life. DIA and Division Five of the FBI were working hand in glove with the White Russian emigre intelligence arm, the Solidarists, and many of the Western European intelligence agencies were not aware of the assassination plan worked directly through NATO headquarters.
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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby conniption » Mon Jul 21, 2014 6:40 am

Stop NATO

Russian Aggression Prevention Act: U.S. Declares Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova Major Non-NATO Allies
July 18, 2014 richardrozoff

U.S Congress gives Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova support to receive major non-NATO ally status
By Ana Robakidze
The Messenger (Georgia)
July 18, 2014

The Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014, adopted by the US Congress, provides major non-NATO ally status for Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova.

The Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014, adopted by the US Congress, provides major non-NATO ally status for Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova (during the period in which each of such countries meets specified criteria) for purposes of the transfer or possible transfer of defense articles or defense services. The congress said the act was adopted in order to prevent further Russian aggression towards Ukraine and other sovereign states in Europe and Eurasia.

Congress said that in order to be treated as a major non-NATO ally the country must…fully cooperate with the United States on matters of mutual security concern, including counterterrorism matters.

The progress of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova will be monitored by the U.S government. Once a year the U.S President should provide to the appropriate congressional committees a report assessing whether Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova should continue to be treated, for purposes of the transfer or possible transfer of defense articles or defense services, as major non-NATO allies and whether the treatment should be expanded or reduced.

The act directs the president Barack Obama to increase U.S. Armed Forces interactions with the armed forces of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia and the U.S. and NATO security assistance to such states. Accordingly, the act considers countries of the former Soviet Union to be in need of strengthening democratic institutions, political and civil society organizations, as well as the independent media. They also need to increase educational and cultural exchanges with countries of the former Soviet Union.

Congress directed the Secretary of State to hold former Soviet Countries to increasing democratic standards. Also it ruled out that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Trade and Development Agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the World Bank Group, and the European Bank for Reconstruction should provide Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova with assistance in exploiting natural gas and oil reserves and to developing alternative energy sources.

Georgian military expert Giorgi Tavdgiridze welcomes the U.S Congress’ decision to make Georgia one of its close military allies. Speaking to Frontnews agency, Tavdgiridze said the Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014 is a very important document for Georgia and it will help to simplify military cooperation between the two states. However, the expert says Georgia should remain focused on its own sources of defense and should not rely only on its partners.
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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby conniption » Sat Aug 09, 2014 7:00 pm

Asia Times
(embedded links)

NATO is desperate for war

By Pepe Escobar

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is desperate; it is itching for a war in battlefield Ukraine at any cost.

Let's start with Pentagon supremo, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who has waxed lyrical over the Russian Bear's "threat": "When you see the build-up of Russian troops and the sophistication of those troops, the training of those troops, the heavy military equipment that's being put along that border, of course it's a reality, it's a threat, it's a possibility - absolutely."

NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu could not elaborate if it was "threat" or "reality", absolutely or not, but she saw it all: "We're not going to guess what's on Russia's mind, but we can see what Russia is doing on the ground - and that is of great concern. Russia has amassed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine's eastern border."

In trademark, minutely precise NATOspeak, Lungescu then added that Russia "most probably" would send troops into eastern Ukraine under the cover of "a humanitarian or peace-keeping mission". And that settled it.

Hagel and his remote-controlled Romanian minion Lungescu obviously have not read this or simply ignored its detailed explanation by Russian Air Force's spokesman: the "threat" or "build-up" happens to expire this Friday, the last day of Russian military exercises announced in advance.

Fogh of War gets antsy

Right on cue, NATO secretary-general Anders "Fogh of War" Rasmussen arrived in Kiev practically foaming war in his mouth, ready to lay down the groundwork for NATO's summit in Wales on September 4 when Ukraine, enthroned as a major non-NATO ally, could be projected to become, in lightning speed, fully NATO-weaponized. Moreover, NATO is about to seriously "build up" in Poland, Romania, the Baltics and even Turkey.

But then all sorts of Khaganate of Nulands (as in Victoria Nuland, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs) derivatives started to spin out of control. One can imagine the vain Fogh of War vainly trying to regain his composure.

That took some effort as he was presented with the spectacle of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko - a certified oligarch dogged by dodgy practices - trying hard to evict the Maidan originals from the square in the center of Kiev; these are the people who late last year started the protests that were later hijacked by the Banderastan (as in Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan)/Right Sector neo-Nazis, the US neo-con masters.

The original Maidan protests - a sort of Occupy Kiev - were against monstrous corruption and for the end of the perennial Ukrainian oligarch dance. What the protesters got was even more corruption; the usual oligarch dance; a failed state under civil war and avowed ethnic cleansing of at least 8 million citizens; and on top of it a failed state on its way to further impoverishment under International Monetary Fund "structural adjustment". No wonder they won't leave Maidan.

So Maidan - the remix - has already started even before the arrival of General Winter. Chocolate King Poroshenko must evict them as fast as he can because renewed Kiev protests simply don't fit the hysterical Western corporate media narrative that "it's all Putin's fault". Most of all, corruption is even nastier than before - now with plenty of neo-Nazi overtones.

With Fogh of War already fuming because "Russia won't invade", the pompously named "Secretary" of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, neo-Nazi Andrey Parubiy - who is the most likely candidate for having ordered the hit last month on the MH17 civilian aircraft - decided to step out; a certified rat abandoning a sinking ship move mostly provoked by the fact he did not get an extended ethnic cleansing overdrive in Eastern Ukraine, and had to endure a ceasefire. Poroshenko is not an idiot; after loads of bad PR, he knows his nationwide "support" is evaporating by the minute.

Compounding all this action, a US missile cruiser enters the Black Sea again "to promote peace". The Kremlin and Russian intel easily see that for what it is.

And then there's the horrendous refugee crisis building up in eastern Ukraine. This past Tuesday, Moscow during a UN Security Council meeting requested emergency humanitarian measures - predictably in vain. Washington blocked it because Kiev had blocked it ("There is no humanitarian crisis to end"). Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin dramatically described the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk as "disastrous", stressing that Kiev is intensifying military operations.

According to the UN itself, at least 285,000 people have become refugees in eastern Ukraine. Kiev insists the number of internal refugees is "only" 117,000; the UN doubts it. Moscow maintains that a staggering 730,000 Ukrainians have fled into Russia; the UN High Commission for Refugees agrees. Some of these refugees, fleeing Semenivka, in Sloviansk, have detailed Kiev's use of N-17, an even deadlier version of white phosphorus.

When Ambassador Churkin mentioned Donetsk and Luhansk, he was referring to Kiev's goons gearing up for a massive attack. They are already shelling the Petrovski neighborhood in Donetsk. Almost half of Luhansk residents have fled, mostly to Russia. Those who stayed behind are mostly old-age pensioners and families with small children.

Humanitarian crisis does not even begin to describe it; there's no water, electricity, communication, fuel and medicine left in Luhansk. Kiev's heavy artillery partially destroyed four hospitals and three clinics. Luhansk, in a nutshell, is the Ukrainian Gaza.

In a sinister symmetry, just as it gave a free pass to Israel in Gaza, the Obama administration is giving a free pass to the butchers of Luhansk. And there's even a diversion. Obama was mulling whether to bomb The Caliph's Islamic State goons in Iraq, or maybe drop some humanitarian aid. He opted for (perhaps) "limited" bombing and arguably less limited food and water airdrops.

So let's be clear. For the US government, "there might be a humanitarian catastrophe" in Mount Sinjar in Iraq, involving 40,000 people. As for at least 730,000 eastern Ukrainians, they have the solemn right to be shelled, bombed, air-stricken and turned into refugees.

The new Somalia

Moscow's red lines are quite explicit: NATO out of Ukraine. Crimea as part of Russia. No US troops anywhere near Russia's borders. Full protection for the Russian cultural identity of southern and eastern Ukraine.

Yet the - real - humanitarian crisis (which Washington dismisses) is another serious matter entirely. Kiev's forces are not equipped for prolonged urban warfare. But assuming these forces - a compound of regular military; oligarch-financed terror/death squads; the neo-Nazi-infested "voluntary" Ukrainian national guard; US-trained foreign mercenaries - decide to go for mass carnage to take Donetsk and Luhansk, arguably Moscow will have to consider what NATO types spin as a "limited ground intervention" in Ukraine.

NATO spinsters are foolish enough to believe that if Putin can disguise the intervention as a peacekeeping or humanitarian mission, he may be able to sell it to Russian public opinion. In fact Putin has not "invaded" because Russian public opinion does not want it. His popularity is at a staggering 87%. Only an - improbable - Kiev-perpetrated mass carnage would change the equation, and sway Russian public opinion. Considering this is exactly what NATO wants, Fogh of War will be working overtime to force his vassals to bring about such carnage.

Still, considering the latest developments, what facts on the ground point to is the current oligarch dance in Kiev already unraveling - as in this example here. Moscow won't even have to bother to consider "invading". Meanwhile, Poroshenko's slow motion genocide in Eastern Ukraine, as well as his crackdown of Maidan remix in Kiev, will keep getting a free pass. All hail Ukraine as the new Somalia; a fitting Frankenstein created by the exceptionalist Empire of Chaos.
_______

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com
.

(Copyright 2014 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)


~

P.S.
Here's hoping the "New RI" has shorter pages.
What's up with that?
How far into the black does one have to go before page 2 appears?
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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby conniption » Sat Aug 09, 2014 8:18 pm

Wales Online


Is this the first glimpse of the huge ‘ring of steel’ that will protect Nato summit?

Aug 05, 2014
By David Deans


Security measures begin to show ahead of major conference at the Celtic Manor resort

Image
The perimeter fence on the M4 which is being putting into place ahead of the NATO summit held in the Celtic Manor Hotel, Newport

The first signs of what appears to be the ring of steel that will envelop the Nato Summit have emerged in Newport.

A steel fence, which a source confirmed was being erected for the September 4-5 showcase, has been installed lining the M4 motorway along junction 24, near the Celtic Manor Resort.

Gwent Police said safety barriers being erected at various sites in Newport and Cardiff will become visible in coming days and weeks.

As well as along the M4, fencing has also been seen near the village of Caerleon in the north of Newport.

Lee Taylor, owner of the Bell Inn in Caerleon, said customers have told him steel fencing had been seen 500 yards down from his establishment in Bulmore Road.

Police have said the road will be closed from the pub to the junction with Abernant Road from August 31 until September 6.

Mr Taylor expressed concerns that the road closure would hit his business.

He added: “They are saying ‘We are trying to mitigate any impact on your business’ but if it all kicks off and they get protests they will lock it all down.

“We won’t be able to go anywhere.”

A Gwent Police spokesman said: “As the Nato Summit draws closer we are finalising our preparations for the policing operation which will help ensure the safety of local residents and delegates.

“Our preparations include safety barriers being erected at various sites in the Newport and Cardiff areas. These will become visible in the coming days and weeks.

“We are grateful to the public for their continued support and understanding and apologise in advance if any of our activity causes any disruption or inconvenience.”

The spokesman added any concerns residents or businesses may have can be discussed with police directly, encouraging them to contact the force or attend any briefing events.

Security perimeter zones are a frequent sight at major international summits – a four mile-ring of steel with razor wire and fencing was reportedly erected around the Lough Erne site during the G8 Summit in 2013, together with a six-mile no sail area.

Meanwhile claims that the Prison Service will be put on alert were aired at a Newport council meeting last week.

During a question and answer session about the Nato summit, Tory opposition leader councillor David Fouweather said: “I understand that the Prison Service have been put on alert just in case there are a large number of arrests. Is that correct?”

Senior Newport police officer Superintendent Mark Warrender told the meeting: “All our partners are engaged at a very early stage for all contingencies... I wouldn’t be surprised if that would include courts as well, so we can manage anything that comes our way.

“Hopefully they won’t be needed.”

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: “We have well-rehearsed contingency plans for such events and will continue to work closely with other partner organisations in support of the policing arrangements for this summit.”

Pippa Bartolotti, a member of the No Nato Newport protest group and Welsh Green Party leader, said on Tuesday that “direct action groups” will be making their presence felt in Cardiff when summit dinners are due to take place on the first evening.

Ms Bartolotti added that the No Nato Newport group has decided it will go ahead with a “peace camp” at the Pill Millennium Centre fields in Newport from August 28.

The group is hoping that Newport council will provide the camp with toilets and electricity – but the council did not reply to a request for comment.

Newport-based senior Welsh Tory AM William Graham has called for Barack Obama to receive the Freedom of the City of Newport when he visits the summit.

He said: “Barack Obama would be a hugely deserving and extremely distinctive addition to a very significant list. As the first serving US President to set foot on Welsh soil it is only fitting that Newport should award him its highest honour.”


~


Stop the War Coalition

Newport: Protest the NATO Summit

Protest NATO 04 September 2014. Posted in Anti-war Events

Wales could see its biggest protests in a generation as 60 world leaders meet at the Celtic Manor in Newport for the NATO summit on 4th -5th September

Image
PROTEST THE NATO SUMMIT
No to NATO. No to War. No to Austerity.


Welsh

Wales could see its biggest protests in a generation as 60 world leaders meet at the Celtic Manor in Newport for the NATO summit on 4th -5th September to plan their war on the world. Previous summits in Chicago and Strassbourg saw thousands protest war, austerity and global inequality.

From August 30th people will flock to South Wales for international actions including a weekend march and Counter Summit, week-long peace camp, and protests on the summit's opening day.

NATO is the military alliance binding Europe to US foreign policy, a foreign policy post-Iraq increasingly unpopular around the world. It is also the military alliance currently occupying Afghanistan.

War is the enemy of the poor. The world's 85 richest people have as much as poorest 3.5 billion. The annual sum needed to end world hunger is $30 billion while the US Military's budget is $530 billion per year.

Money into war is money out of our communities. In the UK, 500,000 people had to resort to food banks last year. While public services are slashed, one day of war in Afghanistan could fund 100,000 nurses.

This autumn the powerful will make their voices heard at the NATO summit. We must make sure that the voice of the millions around the world who need peace and justice is also heard.


~

RT

Anti-NATO protesters begin 192-mile march on summit

Published time: August 08, 2014

Image
British Foreign Secretary of State for Foreign an Commonwealth Affairs, William Hague (L) and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen unveils the logo of the NATO Wales' summit before a family picture as part of a Foreign Affairs Ministers meeting in Brussels on June 25, 2014. (AFP Photo)

Peace activists have set out on a three-week ‘Long March on Newport’ to protest against September’s NATO Summit. Police say they have drafted in 9,000 officers to face the protesters in one of the UK’s biggest ever police operations.

More than 20,000 activists from around the world are expected to take part in demonstrations during the summit, where a week-long peace camp and a counter summit are among some of the events planned in what has been billed as Wales’ largest protest in a generation.

Sixty world leaders from the 28-nation military bloc will meet at the Celtic Manor in Newport for the NATO summit on September 4 and 5. Previous NATO summits in Chicago and Strasbourg saw thousands protest war, austerity and global inequality.

In one of the UK’s largest-ever policing deployments, 20km of security fencing is being erected around the venues.

“This is a UK-wide policing effort and I am confident that we will be able to deliver a safe summit, for delegates and the public,” said Assistant Chief Constable Chris Armitt, who is leading the policing and security operation for the summit.

No NATO Newport is taking a 19-day route from the National Eisteddfod in Llanelli on Friday, arriving in Newport on August 29. The protest is inspired by the Newport Chartist Rising, a 19th century suffrage march where scores were killed while demanding the release of Chartists imprisoned in the town.

“Many of us are increasingly worried by the threat that NATO poses to world stability and peaceful relations,” said the organizers.

“Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has reinvented itself supposedly as a tool of the ‘international community’ to safeguard ‘freedom and security’.

“In reality it is a vehicle for US-led use of force in the interests of the rich and powerful, accelerating militarization, bypassing the United Nations and the system of international law, and escalating spending on arms,” they added.

Activists argue that the money spent on arms could be better spent on hospitals, schools and services.

The protesters want to collect messages on postcards from members of the public along the way with the aim of delivering them on the first day of the summit during planned demonstrations outside the venue.

The No to NATO Newport umbrella group draws on the support of anti-war and anti-cuts activists working with the Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Green Party.


~

Re: page lengths.
ffs
conniption
 
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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby conniption » Sat Aug 30, 2014 12:37 am

NATO is the Greatest Threat to Peace on the Planet - James Corbett on RT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqEaYxURwvU
Published on Aug 27, 2014

Under the pretext of an 'overt' Russian threat, NATO is pushing for a ‘readiness action plan’ that will bring the Cold War military bloc closer to Russian borders than ever - even despite objections from some NATO members. James Corbett, editor of the Corbett Report, an independent Japan-based news outlet, gives his perspective on the matter.
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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby conniption » Sat Aug 30, 2014 3:05 am

Randy Newman - Political Science from Live in London

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAElK16OkjQ

I'll continue posting this song until we make our way to page two. >.<

The last NINE posts have been in the black.

Where the heck is page two already?

This is a formal complaint against pages that are way too long.
conniption
 
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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby conniption » Sat Aug 30, 2014 9:17 pm

conniption » Sat Aug 30, 2014 12:05 am wrote:Randy Newman - Political Science from Live in London

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAElK16OkjQ

I'll continue posting this song until we make our way to page two. >.<

The last NINE posts have been in the black.

Where the heck is page two already?

This is a formal complaint against pages that are way too long.
conniption
 
Posts: 2480
Joined: Sun Nov 11, 2012 10:01 pm
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Re: Stop NATO - Opposition to global militarism

Postby conniption » Sat Aug 30, 2014 9:17 pm

conniption » Sat Aug 30, 2014 6:17 pm wrote:
conniption » Sat Aug 30, 2014 12:05 am wrote:Randy Newman - Political Science from Live in London

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAElK16OkjQ

I'll continue posting this song until we make our way to page two. >.<

The last NINE posts have been in the black.

Where the heck is page two already?

This is a formal complaint against pages that are way too long.
conniption
 
Posts: 2480
Joined: Sun Nov 11, 2012 10:01 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

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