The Marxist-Leninist Daily

March 20, 2010 marks the seventh anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Around the world, this bitter anniversary is being marked with militant demonstrations to reject imperialist war and occupation and demand peace based on justice. On this occasion, TML reiterates the demands of the world's peoples for an end to the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine and for the repatriation of all foreign troops.

In the U.S., demonstrations are taking place in cities across the country, with a national mass mobilization in Washington, DC. In Canada anti-war demonstrations and other activities are taking place in Fredericton, Hamilton, Edmonton and Vancouver, including activists organizing to participate in the mobilization in Seattle, Washington.

The occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine are dirty wars. In the name of high ideals, operations which in the past were covert CIA operations involving targetted assassinations, psyops, disinformation, disappearances, renditions, torture and all the other dirty practices in the arsenal of so-called asymmetric war, have now become official. The U.S.-led imperialist forces do not aim to sort out any problems of security and have therefore made the security situation much worse as they push to encircle China, isolate Iran, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and peoples fighting for their own independent path to development. The imperialist medieval dictum "Might Makes Right" spells grave dangers for the peoples of the entire world, especially today when the U.S.-led NATO alliance is positioning its nuclear weapons throughout Europe and going everywhere to declare they reserve the right to make pre-emptive nuclear strikes on all who do not submit to their dictate.

The peoples of the world never accepted the imperialists' lies to justify the criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003. In 2010, they will not accept similar mendacity by the U.S. and EU in their attempts to isolate Iran based on spurious information about a nuclear weapons program. They will never accept attempts to attack and blockade countries like Venezuela, Cuba and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea which are countries that are a force for peace and progress in defiance of U.S. dictate. They vehemently reject the use of so-called aid to Haiti for purposes of profiteering and occupation.

In the March 3 Throne Speech, the Harper government presented an arrogant logic according to which carrying out a military occupation is a worthy distinction and imperialist aggression a rewarding value, a source of pride for a country and its people and a symbol of justice to the world. According to the Harper government, the Western imperialist nations have a quasi-religious duty to liberate lesser nations, which justifies the destruction, occupation and interference in the internal affairs of other countries in the name of development and humanitarian aid. Amongst other things the Harper government through its Throne Speech states:

"Our Government will use its voice to speak on behalf of Canada's commitment to global security and human rights."

"Today, [...] a new generation of men and women in uniform continues to stand up for the values and principles Canadians hold dear. In Afghanistan, the Canadian Forces prepare for the end of the military mission in 2011 with the knowledge that -- through great sacrifice and with great distinction -- their efforts saved Kandahar province from falling back under Taliban control. After 2011, our effort in Afghanistan will focus on development and humanitarian aid."

"We are a country that stands up for what is right in the world. Canadians want their Government to do what is right, not what is popular. They want their country to carry its share of the work in international affairs, not just talk about it. And they want their Government to make only those commitments it intends to keep."

As part of the opposition to war and occupation, Canadians must denounce the Throne Speech for its promotion of war and the trampling of Canadians' aspirations for peace. It must be denounced for its capital-centred outlook according to which the natural and human resources of the nation are put at the disposal of the financial oligarchy and warmongers.

TML calls on everyone to go all out in their activities to oppose war and occupation with full confidence that genuine peace lies with the justice-loving peoples of the world. TML calls on Canadians to make their contribution to international peace and justice by intensifying their anti-war activities which must necessarily include the work to establish an anti-war government so that Canada becomes a genuine force for peace in the world.

All Out to Oppose Aggression and War!
Might Does Not Make Right!
End the Occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine!
Bring the Troops Home Now!
Fight for an Anti-War Government!

The New 'Forgotten' War:
Iraq Occupation Falls Into Media Shadows

"The Western world that slaughtered Iraq and Iraqis, through 13 years of sanctions and seven years of occupation, is now turning its back on the victims. What has remained of Iraq is still being devastated by bombings, assassinations, corruption, millions of evictions and continued infrastructure destruction. Yet the world that caused all this is trying to draw a rosy picture of the situation in Iraq."
-Maki Al-Nazzal, Iraqi political analyst

As Afghanistan has taken center stage in U.S. corporate media, with President Barack Obama announcing two major escalations of the war in recent months, the U.S. occupation of Iraq has fallen into the media shadows.

But while U.S. forces have begun to slowly pull back in Iraq, approximately 130,000 American troops and 114,000 private contractors still remain in the country (Congressional Research Service, 12/14/09) -- along with an embassy the size of Vatican City. Upwards of 400 Iraqi civilians still die in a typical month (Iraq Body Count, 12/31/09), and fallout from the occupation that is now responsible, by some estimates, for 1 million Iraqi deaths (Extra!, 1/2/08) continues to severely impact Iraqis in ways that go uncovered by the U.S. press.

From early on in the occupation of Iraq, one of the most pressing concerns for Iraqis-besides ending the occupation and a desperate need for security-has been basic infrastructure. The average home in Iraq today, over six and a half years into the occupation, operates on less than six hours of electricity per day (AP, 9/7/09). "A water shortage described as the most critical since the earliest days of Iraq's civilization is threatening to leave up to 2 million people in the south of the country without electricity and almost as many without drinking water," the Guardian (8/26/09) reported; waterborne diseases and dysentery are rampant. The ongoing lack of power and clean drinking water has even led Iraqis to take to the streets in Baghdad (AP, 10/11/09), chanting, "No water, no electricity in the country of oil and the two rivers."

Devastation wrought by the occupation, coupled with rampant corruption among the Western contractors awarded the contracts to rebuild Iraq's demolished infrastructure, are to blame (International Herald Tribune, 7/6/09). Ali Ghalib Baban, Iraq's minister of planning, said late last year (International Herald Tribune, 11/21/09) that the billions of dollars the U.S. has spent on so-called reconstruction contracts in Iraq has had no discernible impact. "Maybe they spent it," he said, "but Iraq doesn't feel it."

Last January, the Los Angeles Times ran a story (1/26/09) that highlighted the lack of electricity: "As elections near, people say it's hard to have faith in leaders when they don't even have electricity," was the subhead. But most other large U.S. papers have avoided the topic-unless it is brought up in such a way as to blame Iraqis for the problem, as the New York Times (11/21/09) did with its piece, "U.S. Fears Iraqis Will Not Keep Up Rebuilt Projects."

Further complicating matters, a drought that is now over four years old plagues most of Iraq. In the country's north, lack of water has forced more than 100,000 people to abandon their homes since 2005, with 36,000 more on the verge of leaving (AP, 10/13/09).

Corporate media coverage of the ongoing Iraqi refugee crisis-the UN estimates that more than 4.5 million Iraqis in all have been displaced from their homes (UNHCR.org, 1/09)-continues to be scant. The stories that do appear tend to be local stories about Iraqi refugees in the newspaper's home city (e.g., Chicago Tribune, 10/25/09).

For Iraqis who remain in the country, another critical story is cancer. The U.S. and British militaries used more than 1,700 tons of depleted uranium in Iraq in the 2003 invasion (Jane's Defence News, 4/2/04)-on top of 320 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War (Inter Press Service, 3/25/03). Literally every local person I've ever spoken with in Iraq during my nine months of reporting there knows someone who either suffers from or has died of cancer.

The lead paragraph of an article by Jalal Ghazi, for New America Media (1/6/10), is blunt:

"Forget about oil, occupation, terrorism or even Al-Qaeda. The real hazard for Iraqis these days is cancer. Cancer is spreading like wildfire in Iraq. Thousands of infants are being born with deformities. Doctors say they are struggling to cope with the rise of cancer and birth defects, especially in cities subjected to heavy American and British bombardment."

Ghazi reported that in Fallujah, which bore the brunt of two massive U.S. military operations in 2004, as many as 25 percent of newborn infants have serious physical abnormalities. Cancer rates in Babil, an area south of Baghdad, have risen from 500 cases in 2004 to more than 9,000 in 2009. Dr. Jawad al-Ali, the director of the Oncology Center in Basra, told Al Jazeera English (10/12/09) that there were 1,885 cases of cancer in all of 2005; between 1,250 and 1,500 patients visit his center every month now.

Babies born to U.S. veterans of the 1991 war are showing birth defects very similar to affected Iraqi babies (Sunday Herald, 3/30/03), and many U.S. soldiers are now referring to Gulf War Syndrome 2, alleging they have developed cancer because of exposure to depleted uranium in Iraq (New America Media, 1/6/10).

How has this ongoing story been covered by the corporate media? It hasn't, at least not in the last five years, with the exception of an article in Vanity Fair (2/05) and a few isolated Associated Press stories, like "Sickened Iraq Vets Cite Depleted Uranium" (8/13/06). While smaller publications like the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (11/05) and the Public Record (10/19/09) have taken it on, none of the other big outlets have touched the story.

While U.S. newspapers have been following the lead-up to the Iraq elections, there has been virtually no coverage of the mass arrests Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki's government is busy conducting in predominantly Sunni areas of Iraq. As the Iraqi daily Azzaman (1/4/10) reported:

"Iraqi security forces have launched a wide campaign in Sunni Muslim-dominated neighborhoods of Baghdad and towns and cities to the north and west of the capital.... The campaign is said to be the widest by the government in years and has led to an exodus of people to the Kurdish north."

Family members of those being arrested are not told where their loved ones are being held, only that those arrested will remain behind bars until after the elections. These sweeps have collected members of the formerly U.S.-backed Awakening Councils, Sunni militias once paid off by the U.S. to stop their attacks on occupation forces. The cutoff of U.S. support for the Councils is another underreported story.

Meanwhile, the hardship for Iraqis continues unabated, along with the need to find alternative sources for accurate information-or any information-about an occupation that continues to involve as many troops as when Iraq dominated U.S. headlines in 2004 (Congressional Research Service, 7/2/09).

(Please note that some of the statistics in this article have changed since the time it was written.)

* Dahr Jamail is a U.S. journalist and author of "Beyond the Green Zone" and most recently "The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan." He now investigates the under-reported but growing anti-war resistance of American GIs.

An Appeal to Anti-War Organizations and Activists to Oppose the Increasing Threats Against Iran

Around the world, anti-war activists are preparing for major protests this spring to oppose the continuing U.S.-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a storm of developments is dramatically increasing tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In response, the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) is issuing this appeal to the anti-war movements in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries to raise the demands of No war, no sanctions, no internal interference in Iran!

Iran is a country that hasn't attacked a neighbor in more than 200 years. Even when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran after the 1979 Revolution and, with support from the West, used chemical weapons against both civilians and combatants, the Islamic Republic did not retaliate in kind. And yet the U.S. government claims that Iran represents a serious threat to the Middle East region and the entire world. Without a shred of evidence, the U.S. charges that Iran's program to develop nuclear power for peaceful energy purposes is just a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Never mentioned is the fact that, as a signatory to the UN's Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran's right to develop nuclear energy is enshrined in international law. Just a few months ago, the UN's International Atomic Energy Chief, Mohammed ElBardai, the person responsible for monitoring compliance with that treaty, stated, "Nobody is sitting in Iran today developing nuclear weapons. Tehran doesn't have an ongoing nuclear weapons program. But somehow, everyone in the West is talking about how Iran's nuclear program is the greatest threat to the world." (Interview with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sept. 2009) Instead, warning of world disaster if Iran should succeed in its imaginary goal of obtaining nuclear arms, Washington argues that Iran must be forcefully brought to its knees, through a combination of increasingly crippling sanctions, taking advantage of Iran's internal divisions and preparing for a possible military attack.

The U.S has been pressuring the permanent members of the UN Security Council to impose a fourth and more severe round of sanctions against Iran. The only real holdout has been the People's Republic of China, which in January held the council's revolving presidency. On Feb. 1, however, the president's seat passed to France, which is nearly as hostile to Iran's nuclear program as is the U.S. (France itself, by the way, relies on nuclear power for 80 percent of its own energy needs.) The Security Council's permanent members, including China and Russia, have never been a real barrier for the U.S. Not only has the council already approved three rounds of sanctions against Iran, but the Obama Administration is now talking of "bypassing" the UN in its latest push for sanctions. While sanctions are often promoted as an alternative to war, the world now knows that the sanctions imposed by the UN against Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War resulted in the deaths of up to 1.5 million Iraqis, a third of them children.

Not content with just pressuring the UN the U.S. is pushing ahead with plans for more of its own unilateral sanctions. Congress is getting close to passing the Dodd-Shelby Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act. Among other provisions, this bipartisan bill would "impose new sanctions on entities involved in exporting certain refined petroleum products to Iran or building Iran's domestic refining capacity." This provision starkly exposes the real U.S. goal: to economically cripple Iran in an attempt to so complicate life for the Iranian people that they might demand a "regime change." In the past, the U.S. has argued that Iran doesn't need to develop nuclear power because of its vast oil reserves, while conveniently omitting the fact that Iran doesn't have sufficient refinery capacity to meet its energy needs through oil alone. Targeting companies and countries that sell refined petroleum products to Iran, or that help Iran expand its own refining capacity, shows that the real goal has nothing to do with countering nuclear proliferation. (The U.S. even pressures European countries not to provide Iran with the means to develop wind energy!) Those who desire hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East can tolerate no independent regional powers, whether or not they present a threat to any other country. This reality was dramatically demonstrated in 1953, when the CIA toppled Iran's democratically elected prime minister, Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh, for the "crime" of nationalizing Iran's oil industry.

Meanwhile, these threats of new sanctions are being accompanied by a military build-up in the Persian Gulf region. On Jan. 31, the Wall Street Journal reported that, in recent months, the U.S. and its Persian Gulf allies have stepped up their military defenses "in response to Iranian missile tests and Tehran's continued defiance of international efforts to curtail its nuclear program." The moves have included "upgrades, new purchases of American- made Patriot antimissile batteries and the addition of advanced air- and missile-defense radars. " The Journal reported that, although "some of the buildup has been going on for years ... the heightened profile of the moves comes as the Obama administration has toughened its rhetoric against Tehran."

And, according to a Feb. 1 Reuters report, "The United States has expanded land- and sea-based missile defense systems in and around the Gulf to counter what it sees as Iran's growing missile threat ... The deployments include expanded land-based Patriot defensive missile installations in Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and Bahrain, as well as Navy ships with missile defense systems in and around the Mediterranean, officials said. The chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said last month the Pentagon must have military options ready to counter Iran should Obama call for them."

Finally, Iran's ongoing internal political crisis has apparently led some Western anti-war organizations and activists to be ambivalent about the need to stand against Western aggression against Iran. Regardless of how activists view Iran's internal situation, we all must agree that outside pressure and interference must be opposed. Recognizing this, Iran's political opposition has urged Western countries to stay out of Iran's internal affairs. As presidential opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, has put it, "We are opposed to any types of sanctions against our nation. This is what living the Green Path means." (Statement No. 13, Sept. 28, 2009) No truly progressive democracy activist in a country targeted by the U.S. would appeal to the U.S. for support.

The political positions taken by anti-war activists in the West can become a real factor in strategic decisions made by the U.S. government and its allies. Because of this, we are heartened to see that in the United States the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations and the ANSWER Coalition have added the demand of "No War or Sanctions Against Iran!" to their fliers promoting national anti-war protests on March 20. We call on all other coalitions, organizations and individual activists to do the same, and to further demand "No Outside Interference in Iran's Internal Affairs! Self-determination for the Iranian People!"

Regardless of differences in our political analyses and views, these demands should be acceptable to all who struggle for peace, justice and a better world for all.

China, Brazil, Turkey, Oppose Sanctions on Iran

The U.S. sent its Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to West Asia this month in part to secure support for increased sanctions against Iran and possibly prepare the region for a U.S.-Israeli attack on the country. However, Turkey, considered a close ally of the U.S. that permits use of its military bases for U.S. aggression, has expressed its opposition. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, repeating statements by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, emphasized, "We are against all nuclear weapons wherever they are, and we do not want them in our region, not just in Iran and anywhere else. Yet, we believe that the problem should be solved through diplomacy." "We think that military means or sanctions have negative effects on our region," he told reporters after addressing a meeting of foreign ministers of the Arab League in Cairo. Prime Minister Erdogan, after meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama said, "We have specifically stated that the question [of Iran's nuclear program] can be resolved through diplomacy and diplomacy only."

China, which is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has so far also been firm in proposing that instead of sanctions, negotiations are the way forward in addressing concerns regarding Iran's nuclear program. At a press conference held on the sidelines of China's National People's Congress, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said: "As everyone knows, pressure and sanctions are not the fundamental way forward to resolving the Iran nuclear issue, and cannot fundamentally solve this issue."

Earlier in March, speaking ahead of the visit to Brazil by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, also called for negotiations with Iran. "It is not prudent to push Iran against a wall," Da Silva told reporters hours before meeting Clinton. Brazil is presently a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Saudi Arabia, an ally of the U.S. and also a part of the G-20 group of nations, has publicly signalled that it may not support sanctions on Iran.

As Gates rounded up his visit to the region, Iran questioned the rationale for the presence of U.S. forces in the area. "What are you doing in our region? Why are you deploying military forces here," said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "If you think military deployment will help you seize the oil in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf, I must tell you that the young generation of the [West Asia] will cut your hands off from the oil reserves of the Persian Gulf," Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency quoted the president as saying.

In related news, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb on March 13 said there is consensus within the European Union for unilateral sanctions on Iran if a UN Security Council resolution fails.

"I think we'll be able to convince Russia and China and I'm quite hopeful that we'll get something in the Security Council," said Stubb during a gathering of foreign ministers from the EU and Turkey being hosted by Finland. "But failing that, we'll just have to do it unilaterally and by unilateral I mean the EU directly on Iran."

Britain, France and Germany are agreed on the need for a fourth round of sanctions to restrict Iran's nuclear program, but some smaller EU states have reservations and the details of any sanctions package have yet to be finalized, news agencies report. Despite that, Stubb said there was "consensus enough" within the EU to secure support for a unilateral move and said the issue would be discussed by foreign ministers on March 22.

"Time is running out, so I'm sure this is going to be something, if the UN Security Council fails, that we'll deal with when we have our EU foreign ministers' meeting on the 22nd," he said. "That's when we'll get into the detail [of possible sanctions]... There is consensus enough."

"It's true that there's a lot of convincing still to be done, but the main issue here is to get the UN Security Council to agree to those sanctions and therefore you have to convince the five [permanent] negotiating partners," Stubb added.

Iran and Israel --
Spot the Difference on Nuclear Weapons

Iran is complying with UN resolutions and has opened its nuclear installations to inspection. It insists that it is committed to developing nuclear power for energy purposes only -- as it is entitled to do under international law. Not a shred of evidence has been produced to show that Iran intends to develop nuclear armaments. Iran has stated categorically that it has no such plans.

Iran, says Barack Obama, "must comply with United Nations resolutions" and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, says Iran will face "crippling" sanctions if it doesn't do something it is already doing.

"We are committed to demonstrating that international law is not an empty promise," says Obama," president of the nation that has, since 1945, violated more international laws than any other country.

Meanwhile, Israel -- a country that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- has a secret stockpile of nuclear weapons, as revealed 23 years ago by Israeli nuclear technician Dr. Modecai Vanunu, service to humanity for which he was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. Since his release in 2004 he has been held by the Israeli government under severe restrictions that prevent him from leaving Israel or, without permission, his home town. He is forbidden any communication with foreigners.

Israel is one of only three countries along with India and Pakistan, which is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and is widely believed to possess several hundred nuclear warheads, as well as the means to deliver them.

When the International Atomic Energy Agency for the first time on 19 September 2009 called on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and open up its atomic sites to international inspection, the response was predictable: refusal to cooperate in any way.

War Preparations: Final Destination Iran?

Hundreds of powerful U.S. "bunker-buster" bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the U.S. government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the U.S. navy, this included 387 "Blu" bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.

Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran's controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the U.S. military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.

Although Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, it is used by the U.S. as a military base under an agreement made in 1971. The agreement led to 2,000 native islanders being forcibly evicted to the Seychelles and Mauritius.

The Sunday Herald reported in 2007 that stealth bomber hangers on the island were being equipped to take bunker-buster bombs.

Although the story was not confirmed at the time, the new evidence suggests that it was accurate.

Contract details for the shipment to Diego Garcia were posted on an international tenders' website by the U.S. navy.

A shipping company based in Florida, Superior Maritime Services, will be paid $699,500 to carry many thousands of military items from Concord, California, to Diego Garcia.

Crucially, the cargo includes 195 smart, guided, Blu-110 bombs and 192 massive 2000lb Blu-117 bombs.

"They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran," said Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London, co-author of a recent study on U.S. preparations for an attack on Iran. "U.S. bombers are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours," he added.

The preparations were being made by the U.S. military, but it would be up to President Obama to make the final decision. He may decide that it would be better for the U.S. to act instead of Israel, Plesch argued.

"The U.S. is not publicising the scale of these preparations to deter Iran, tending to make confrontation more likely," he added. "The U.S. ... is using its forces as part of an overall strategy of shaping Iran's actions."

According to Ian Davis, director of the new independent thinktank, Nato Watch, the shipment to Diego Garcia is a major concern. "We would urge the U.S. to clarify its intentions for these weapons, and the Foreign Office to clarify its attitude to the use of Diego Garcia for an attack on Iran," he said.

For Alan Mackinnon, chair of Scottish CND [Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament], the revelation was "extremely worrying." He stated: "It is clear that the U.S. government continues to beat the drums of war over Iran, most recently in the statements of Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

"It is depressingly similar to the rhetoric we heard prior to the war in Iraq in 2003."

The British Ministry of Defence has said in the past that the U.S. government would need permission to use Diego Garcia for offensive action. It has already been used for strikes against Iraq during the 1991 and 2003 Gulf wars.

About 50 British military staff are stationed on the island, with more than 3,200 U.S. personnel. Part of the Chagos Archipelago, it lies about 1,000 miles from the southern coasts of India and Sri Lanka, well placed for missions to Iran.

Global Warfare; Missile Shield and Nuclear Weapons

The civilian chief of the world's only, and history's first self-proclaimed global, military bloc is having a busy month.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen delivered an address in Washington, DC on February 23 on the military alliance's new 21st century Strategic Concept along with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her predecessor twice-removed Madeleine Albright and National Security Adviser James Jones, the last-named a former Marine Corps general and NATO Supreme Allied Commander.[1]

At the seminar and on the preceding evening at Georgetown University in what is arguably NATO's true capital, Rasmussen sounded familiar themes: Highlighting the need to prevail in Afghanistan, NATO's first ground war and first armed conflict outside of Europe. Applauding the work of the bloc's new cyber warfare center in Estonia, ostensibly to protect the comparatively new member state against attacks emanating from Russia. Identifying Iran and North Korea for particular scrutiny.

He also spoke of "deepening our partnerships with countries from across the globe" and affirmed "NATO is a permanent Alliance..."[2]

The bloc's chief announced the creation of "a new division at NATO Headquarters to deal with new threats and challenges."[3]

Since then Rasmussen has visited Jordan, Bahrain, Finland, the Czech Republic and Poland to promote the broadening of worldwide military partnerships, the recruitment of more troops and other support for the Afghan war, and the expansion of an eventual global missile shield system within the context of NATO's further transformation into an international and expeditionary security and military force. In Rasmussen's words, the Alliance is to become a global security forum in addition to being the world's only permanent military alliance.

The Strategic Concept meeting held in Finland on March 4 with the foreign ministers of that country and of Sweden, Alexander Stubb and Carl Bildt, respectively, as well as Finland's defense minister -- the first formal gathering on the Strategic Concept held in a non-member nation -- focused on the two Scandinavian nations' expanding role in Afghanistan and what was described as EU-NATO cooperation and Nordic cooperation.

Regarding supposed threats which within the current context could only be an allusion to Finland's neighbor Russia, Rasmussen said that it was no longer sufficient to "line up soldiers and tanks and military equipment along the borders." Instead the bloc's members "really have to address the threat at its roots, and it might be in cyber space," as the "enemy might appear everywhere in cyberspace."[4]

He also reprised the demand he voiced at the Munich Security Conference on February 7 that NATO assume the function of a global security forum.

The previous day Rasmussen indicated the nature of that role in alluding to the currently longest and biggest war in the world: "Afghanistan will serve as a prototype for future civil-military cooperation in handling crises in other weak or failing nations," as paraphrased by a major American news agency.[5]

On March 5 he met with the Czech prime, defense and foreign ministers in Prague where the four "discussed missile defence, which the Secretary General considers an important part of securing the Euro-Atlantic community against the threat of missiles"[6] and increased contributions to the Afghan war effort.

Rasmussen's visit to Jordan on March 7 was in part designed to consolidate NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue partnership with the host nation, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia and Algeria. His trip to Bahrain the following day was aimed at solidifying ties under the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative with the Gulf Cooperation Council states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in furtherance of NATO's plans in Afghanistan and the Gulf of Aden and its agenda against Iran. His Royal Highness Crown Prince Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa "was briefed on NATO's perception of the Gulf and international security conditions and invited to visit NATO Headquarters..."[7]

On March 12 the secretary general arrived in Warsaw to participate in the NATO's New Strategic Concept -- Global, Transatlantic and Regional Challenges and Tasks Ahead conference at the nation's Royal Castle organized by the Warsaw Center for International Relations and the Polish Ministry of Defense.

His address reiterated the now standard demand that NATO combine Article 5 so-called collective defense for its members -- in Poland's case that can only be a reference to Russia -- with expeditionary deployments outside NATO's self-defined area of responsibility as exemplified by recent wars and other armed missions in the Balkans, Afghanistan, the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa, the Mediterranean Sea and the Darfur region of Sudan.

"NATO's core task was, is, and will remain, the defence of our territory and our populations. But we need, at the same time, to take a hard look at what deterrence means in the 21st century.

"For our deterrence to remain credible, I firmly believe it must continue to be based on a mix of conventional and nuclear capabilities. And our new Strategic Concept should affirm that."[8]

As a warm-up exercise he had spoken the day before at the Transatlantic Forum 2010 at the University of Warsaw and earlier on the 12th he met with staff and students from the University of Warsaw's Institute of International Relations and the Institute of Strategic Studies in Krakow.

Reporting on his position regarding the use of nuclear weapons during his stay in the Polish capital, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported him advocating that "atomic weapons were still needed for deterrence reasons," [9] and Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted him as saying:

"Nuclear weapons will remain a major element of credible deterrence in the future. A world without atomic weapons would be wonderful, but as long as states and non-state structures exist which aim to gain atomic weapons, then we should also maintain our nuclear capacities."[10]

Nine days earlier Rasmussen had advocated the same stance in announcing "the western military alliance will debate the bloc's nuclear policy in Estonia next month." Responding to a recent call by the foreign ministers of Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway to debate the stationing of between 240-350 U.S. warheads at air bases in Europe, the NATO chief said the Alliance "will have to balance calls to remove outdated weapons with a need for a strategic nuclear 'deterrent.'"[11]

"There are a lot of nuclear weapons in the world, and a number of countries that either have them, would like to have them, or could have them quickly if they decided they needed them. That is just the way it is. So whatever we do in support of arms control and disarmament should be balanced with deterrence."[12]

In his main address in Poland he also stressed that "our new Strategic Concept will also need to reflect [the] need to reflect that the meaning of territorial defence is changing" and that another "challenge that we must tackle head-on is cyber security."[13]

"[W]e must develop an effective missile defence. In the coming years, we will probably face many more countries -- and possibly even some non-state actors -- armed with long-range missiles and nuclear capabilities. Therefore, I believe that NATO's deterrent posture should include missile defence.

"That's why deterrence and defence need to go together. And why we have the obligation to look into missile defence options."

Two days before Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued another warning against U.S. interceptor missile deployments near his nation's borders -- including those planned in Poland -- saying, "Russia cannot allow U.S. plans to deploy elements of its missile system in Europe to threaten the effectiveness of its nuclear deterrent."

"Military experts say the planned missile system could be able to hit Russia's ballistic missiles in the next ten years."[14]

As to the pretext that Washington and NATO are employing to ring Russia's western flank with missile shield installations, Lavrov said:

"It is evident that Iran currently poses no threat to the U.S. and European countries... At the moment, Iran has no missiles capable of striking Europe, let alone the U.S., and is unlikely to develop [such missiles] in the foreseeable future."[15]

While in Warsaw Rasmussen also elaborated on the global nature of 21st century expeditionary NATO.

"We need more flexible, mobile and deployable armed forces. If our military is stationary, if our armed forces can't be moved beyond the borders of each individual member state, the defence of Allied territory will not be effective."

He called for "overhaul[ing] our military command structure, to make it more flexible and deployable."

"Today, NATO is engaged in Afghanistan, in the Balkans, in the Mediterranean Sea, and off the Horn of Africa. This broad spectrum of missions and operations is only natural. Today's risks and threats are increasingly global in nature, and our Alliance must reflect this fact."

In his address at the Royal Castle in Warsaw he twice employed a variation of the catch phrase first introduced by President George H.W. Bush in 1989: Europe whole, free and at peace.[16]

Europe, whole if not necessarily free and by no means at peace outside its borders, is to continue being NATO's and the U.S.'s base for military interventions throughout much of the world.

"[O]ur first line of defence must be to complete the consolidation of Europe as a continent that is whole, free and at peace.

"What does this consolidation of Europe entail? For one, it means that NATO's Open Door policy must continue." Rasmussen was speaking in the immediate sense about candidate nations in the Balkans and in the former Soviet Union.

In relation to the Afghan war in particular, "NATO and the EU should cooperate and coordinate better."

"NATO Headquarters must be less of a bureaucracy and more of a streamlined, operational headquarters. A headquarters where staff and resources are realigned to serve the Alliance's new priorities, not outdated legacy activities and narrow national interests."

In relation to where the true "first line of defense" should be, alluding to last year's Belarusian-Russian military exercises near Poland's borders Rasmussen added:

"If our military is stationary, if our armed forces can't be moved beyond the borders of each individual member state, the defence of Allied territory will not be effective... We think Russia sends the wrong kind of signal by conducting military exercises that rehearse the invasion of a smaller NATO member."

Russia is in fact larger than Poland, but Poland has a population almost four times that of Belarus and is a member, indeed a major outpost, of a U.S.-led global military bloc.

Moreover, the NATO chief stated that, in regards to Russia's new military strategy which identifies NATO expansion along its frontiers and U.S. missile deployments in its neighborhood as the chief threats to its national security, "Russia's new military doctrine does not reflect the real world."

NATO has expanded military partnerships throughout almost all of Europe, in the Middle East, Africa, the Caucasus, Central and South and East Asia, and the South Pacific, but despite Rasmussen's claim that Russia has "a very outdated notion about the nature and role of NATO," a time traveller from the last century could be forgiven for thinking that in relation to post-Soviet Russia the only thing that has changed is NATO's brazen drive to encircle it.

After delivering his speech at the Strategic Concept seminar, Rasmussen matched the deed to the word and "travelled from Warsaw to Bydgoszcz to visit the Joint Forces Training Centre (JFTC) -- part of NATO's Allied Command Transformation (ACT) military body. The JFTC prepares officers for deployment to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan."[17]

He addressed commanders of the Norfolk, Virginia-headquartered Allied Command Transformation, after which he inspected troops of NATO's Third Signal Battalion stationed there.

Three days earlier NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, spoke before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee and anticipated his civilian colleague's comments in Poland to a remarkable degree.

"Stavridis noted that 100,000 NATO troops are involved in expeditionary operations on three continents, including operations in Afghanistan, off the coast of Africa, and in [the Balkans]."

"Stavridis called the new phased-in approach for European missile defense 'timely and flexible,' and said it will provide 'capability that we can step up and be adaptive, as the Iranian capability to use ballistic missiles goes forward.'" The following day Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov forcefully refuted the excuse Stavridis resorted to in order to justify American and NATO missile shield deployments, as seen earlier.

"The admiral said he is very confident in the first stage of the program, which is sea-based with the Aegis weapons system and 'reasonably confident' in the second phase, which is shore-based." He also paralleled Rasmussen's contentions that "The nature of threats in this 21st century [is] going to demand more than just sitting behind our borders" and that "Among the greatest concerns that impacts both military and civilian realms... is cybersecurity."[18]

Both the ship- and land-based Standard Missile-3 deployments Stavridis alluded to are to be centered, among other locations, in the Baltic Sea and almost certainly on Polish soil. Next month the U.S. will begin the activation of a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile battery near the Baltic Sea city of Morag, thirty five miles from the Russian border, and base 100 soldiers there, the first American troops ever to be stationed in Poland and the first foreign ones in a generation.

"The missile battery will be equipped with elements allowing it to be integrated with the Polish defense system."[19]

Earlier this month a Polish newspaper revealed that American missile plans in Poland are far more ambitious than just the construction of Patriot and Standard Missile-3 batteries: "The U.S. is also interested in building longer-range missile silos near the Poland-Kaliningrad border. These would be capable of shooting down missiles from as far as 5,500 kilometers away..."[20]

On March 4 400 Polish troops and "scores of U.S. Army soldiers"[21] began military exercises at the Training Center for Peacekeeping Forces in Kielce in southeastern Poland.

From March 17 to 20 NATO will conduct air exercises over the Baltic Sea region in "a demonstration of NATO solidarity and commitment to its member countries in the Baltic Region" and "a show of solidarity with former Soviet republics concerned about Russia,"[22] that will include Polish, Lithuanian and French warplanes as well as U.S. tanker aircraft.

The NATO Joint Force Training Center in Bydgoszcz in northern Poland which Anders Fogh Rasmussen toured on March 12 "trained 2,186 personnel from 32 Allied and Partnership for Peace Nations prior to deployment to ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] during 11 training events. The 2010 training year will see an increase in the total number of personnel impacted by the Joint Force Training Center."

It has a staff of 84 personnel from eighteen member nations consisting of officers, non-commissioned officers and NATO civilians.

"However, in the coming year the authorized strength of the organization will rise to 105."[23]

While the NATO secretary was in Warsaw, Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich spoke at the same conference, which was timed to coincide with the eleventh anniversary of Poland's full absorption into NATO, and advocated that NATO's new Strategic Concept prepare "for the worst possible scenarios," even if such scenarios were "not too probable."[24]

Klich also said he wanted "to attract NATO infrastructure into Poland" and that "he is prepared to organize an exercise involving NATO rapid-reaction forces in Poland in 2013."[25]

Poland and its Baltic neighbors represent the point at which NATO's dual strategic objectives -- "defending Europe whole and free," including with nuclear weapons, and an expansion "increasingly global in nature" -- converge.

Notes

1. 21st Century Strategy: Militarized Europe, Globalized NATO, Stop NATO, February 26, 2010
2. Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at Georgetown University North Atlantic Treaty Organization, February 22, 2010
3. Remarks by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the fourth Strategic Concept Seminar on Transformation and Capabilities, Washington DC North Atlantic Treaty Organization, February 23, 2010
4. Agence France-Presse, March 4, 2010
5. Associated Press, March 4, 2010
6. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, March 5, 2010
7. Bahrain News Agency, March 8, 2010
8. Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at NATO's New Strategic Concept -- Global, Transatlantic and Regional Challenges and Tasks Ahead North Atlantic Treaty Organization, March 12, 2010
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_62143.htm?selectedLocale=en
9. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, March 12, 2010
10. Deutsche Presse-Agentur, March 12, 2010
11. Agence France-Presse, March 3, 2010
12. Xinhua News Agency, March 4, 2010
13. Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at NATO's New Strategic Concept -- Global, Transatlantic and Regional Challenges and Tasks Ahead
14. Press TV, March 10, 2010
15. Russian Information Agency Novosti, March 10, 2010
16. Berlin Wall: From Europe Whole And Free To New World Order, Stop NATO, November 9, 2009
17. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, March 12, 2010
18. United States Department of Defense, March 9, 2010
19. Polish Radio, February 28, 2010
20. Warsaw Business Journal, March 2, 2010
21. Xinhua News Agency, March 5, 2010
22. Reuters, March 2, 2010
23. North Atlantic Treaty Organization Allied Command TransformationMarch 5, 2010
24. Polish News Agency via Xinhua News Agency, March 13, 2010
25. Warsaw Business Journal, March 12, 2010

All Out to Oppose Aggression and War!

UNITED STATES
Washington, DC
National Mass Demonstration and March
Saturday, March 20 -- 2:00 pm
White House (Lafayette Park on the north side)
The march will begin at the White House, making stops at the offices of Halliburton, the Washington Post, Mortgage Bankers Association of America, National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. On the march, hundreds of coffins will be carried representing the victims of war from Iraq to Afghanistan, Palestine, Pakistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen, and the U.S. GIs who have been killed in the various fronts of these wars of aggression. They will be delivered to the doorsteps of those who profit from and promote these wars. For details on Washington, DC events, click here.

For information on local events taking place in New York, Chicago, Seattle,
San Francisco and Los Angeles, click here.

Seattle
Anti-War Rally
March 21
MAWO is organizing a car pool and bus rides from Vancouver to the Seattle rally.
To join in, call 604-322-1764 or email info@mawovancouver.org.

All Out to Oppose Aggression and War! Might Does Not Make Right! End the Occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine! Bring the Troops Home Now!

All Out to Oppose Aggression and War! Might Does Not Make Right! End the Occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine! Bring the Troops Home Now!

The New 'Forgotten' War: Iraq Occupation Falls Into Media Shadows