Monday, November 25, 2024
Protests at NATO Parliamentary Assembly
and
Halifax Forum
Actions Demand Canada Get Out of NATO,
Dismantle
NATO
Montreal,
November 22, 2024
• Actions Demand Canada Get Out of NATO, Dismantle NATO
For Your Information
• Land Warfare Conference in Britain
–
"Pulling the Future into the
Present"
• Opposition in 1949 to Creation of NATO
Protests at NATO Parliamentary Assembly and Halifax Forum
Actions Demand Canada Get Out of NATO,
Dismantle NATO
The
holding of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s (PA) 70th Annual
Session in Montreal from November 22 to 25 was condemned by Quebeckers
and Canadians as an assembly to promote the hegemonic aims of the
U.S./NATO against the peoples of the world. Actions in Montreal at the
venue of the NATO PA meeting and in Toronto at the constituency office
of Julie Dzerowicz, the Liberal MP who chairs the NATO Parliamentary
Association of Canada, expressed the striving of the peoples for peace
and security and for the resolution of international conflicts through
peaceful means. Protesters demanded that Canada get out of the
aggressive U.S/NATO military alliance which represents a great
threat to peace in the world and that NATO be dismantled. They
denounced the decision of the Biden administration to greenlight
Ukraine's use of U.S. made missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia,
an escalation and direct involvement of U.S./NATO forces in the
conflict. Protesters called on Canadian parliamentarians including
Dzerowicz, to uphold the Ottawa Treaty banning land mines and stop
their deployment to Ukraine by the U.S.
In Halifax, Haligonians, as they have done every year since 2009,
rallied against the annual conference of warmongers and arms
manufacturers called the Halifax International Security Forum, held
there from November 22 to 24.
Montreal
Afternoon rally, November
22, 2024
On November 22 and 23, numerous actions took place in Montreal to express the opposition of Canadians and Quebeckers to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) being held in that city. Demands to dismantle NATO and get Canada out of NATO rang out loud and clear, along with the demand to Make Canada and Quebec Zones for Peace.
On Friday, November 22, a rally in the afternoon and the Block NATO march at the end of the day denounced the hypocrisy of the claim that NATO stands for democracy and peace.
On Saturday, November 23, hundreds of people also marched in the streets of Montreal to demand that NATO be dismantled. During the actions, demonstrators denounced the escalation of the U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine, and all the crimes committed by NATO in many countries around the world.
Young people left no stone unturned to voice their aspirations for peace, to denounce NATO's use of anti-personnel landmines, the destruction of the natural and social environment, against the crimes of the NATO aggressive military alliance around the world, and in support of the Palestinian people, for an end to genocide.
Thousands of students across Quebec held strike days on November 21 and 22, in the context of the NATO PA, in unwavering support of the Resistance Movements in Palestine, Lebanon, and other countries of the Middle East, as well as in Sudan and other countries facing the instability the U.S and NATO forces represent. Forty-two educational institutions across Quebec joined their counter-parts across Canada, the U.S. and around the world. This included Concordia, McGill, UQAM, Montreal and Sherbrooke universities, as well as Dawson, Montmorency, Lionel-Groulx, Marie-Victorin and Vieux-Montréal colleges and CEGEPs.
To divert attention from the main reason for the action monopoly-owned and state media in Montreal claimed the demonstrators on Friday engaged in violence and vandalism and broadcast the images internationally to denigrate what the demonstrators stood for. In a style that is already harshly condemned after misreporting of Zionist attacks against Arabs in Amsterdam as "anti-Jewish pogroms," the Director of the Montreal Police Services (SPVM) and city officials were quoted extensively, praising the "courageous discipline" of the police force in facing the demonstrators and calling for further arrests in the coming days. Quebec's Minister of Public Security took the opportunity to call for tighter control of demonstrations.
Even though the SPVM said that no anti-Semitic acts were reported in connection with the event, the Canadian and Quebec political establishment that supports NATO and its policy of aggression against the peoples of the world, as well as is silent about the genocide being carried out in Gaza, did not hesitate to condemn the demonstration, repeating their well-worn narrative:
"What we saw was not a peaceful demonstration. What we saw was violence, hatred and anti-Semitism. This has no place in our streets," said Mélanie Joly, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, who refuses to condemn the U.S./Zionist genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people.
Canada's cardboard cutout Prime Minister Trudeau wrote on X: "What we saw on the streets of Montreal last night was appalling. Acts of anti-Semitism, intimidation and violence must be condemned wherever they occur. The RCMP is in contact with local police. [...]"
Quebec Premier François Legault threw in his two cents saying, "The violent and hateful scenes we witnessed last night in the streets of Montreal, with attacks specifically targeting the Jewish community, are unacceptable. Burning cars and smashing windows is not about sending a message, it's about causing chaos. Such acts have no place in a peaceful society like Quebec."
All of this is aimed at shoring up Canada's moves to label anyone who supports the Palestinian Resistance and opposes NATO as agents of foreign powers and terrorists and in this way suppress their right to speak and organize in a manner that upholds their conscience, principle and the cause of justice.
Despite them, the voice of Quebeckers has rung out loud and clear; Get Canada Out of NATO, Dismantle NATO! Long Live the Palestinian Resistance! Make Canada and Quebec Zones for Peace!
All over the world, the peoples are speaking out, shaming the supporters of aggression, war and genocide. Those supporting genocide cannot escape the verdict of history, no matter what attempts are made by the official circles and their secret police agencies.
Montreal, November
22
November 23
Toronto
A militant noon-hour picket was held at the constituency office of Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz on November 23. Dzerowicz is the MP for Davenport and has been the Chair of the NATO Parliamentary Association of Canada since 2016 and is hosting the NATO PA 70th Annual Session in Montreal.
The demonstration reflected the anti-war spirit of the Canadian people, evident from the response from passers-by on foot and passing cars -– honks, waves, peace signs, thumbs-ups. Several people stopped to take pictures of the action before expressing their support and moving on. Copies of the November 21 TML-In the News denouncing the NATO PA and its support for the U.S./NATO aggression and wars, its interference in the name of "security" and "democracy" in the affairs of many nations and its provocations and threats against China and Russia and other countries was warmly received.
The picket also denounced the Halifax International Security Forum and called for the banning of this annual gathering of politicians, weapons manufacturers, media and others to rally behind the U.S. war government in its political, economic and military attacks worldwide, especially on countries that do not kowtow to its agenda. The slogans that Halifax is NO Harbor for War! Ban the Halifax International Security Conference! and Warmongers Not Welcome Here! expressed the demands.
Greg Gillis of the anti-war group Pax Christi and Philip Fernandez, on behalf of CPC(M-L), spoke at the end of the picket. Greg denounced the complicity of Canadian parliamentarians with the U.S./Zionist crimes in Gaza and the U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine, calling for spending on social programs, not war, and for an independent foreign policy for Canada, not one dictated from Washington. Philip called on everyone to step up the work to get Canada out of NATO and make Canada a zone for peace, in line with the aspirations of the people of Canada and Quebec.
Halifax
On November 21, Saint Mary's University hosted the annual Halifax International Security Forum Public Panel, part of the program of the Halifax International Security Forum (HISF). This panel was supported by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Dalhousie University and the Faculty of Arts at Saint Mary's University.
Student organizations at both Saint Mary's University and Dalhousie University strongly condemned both universities for supporting and hosting this forum that promotes war criminals and warmongers. Students demanded that war propaganda be kept off their campuses and these war criminals not be given a platform at their schools.
Students rallied outside of the building where the HISF Public Panel was being held. As participants arrived, the students tried to enter the building but were physically assaulted by the attendees of the public panel and security guards. This didn't stop the fighting spirit of the youth who found other ways to get into the building. They took back their space and disrupted the meeting of these criminals with chants and drumming. In occupying their building and denouncing the war panel they prevented the panelists from being heard, and the event ended an hour early. The Students for the Liberation of Palestine -– Kjipuktuk (Halifax) stated "Our schools are meant to be for us, not for hosting war criminals. People who encourage war and genocide do not deserve a moment of peace!"
As one student said, "University is supposed to be a place of higher human thought and development. The engagement of our Universities in a panel and forum that aims to plan further violence and crimes against the people of the world is not only driving human thought backwards, but is a crime against humanity. The students represent their Universities, and we say warmongers, their ideology and propaganda are not welcome on our campuses, in our cities, or in our world!"
In opposing the Halifax International Security Forum, a forum which equates "security" with U.S./NATO-led aggression and war, students are standing against the militarization of Halifax, against war and occupation and demanding an end to Canada's participation in these crimes and that the Halifax International Security Forum be banned from Canada.
On November 23 more than 50 anti-war protesters rallied outside the Westin Hotel where the HISF was taking place, to denounce the warmongering forum and affirm that Halifax is No Harbour for War and to demand Canada Get Out of NATO! The demonstration was organized by groups including Nova Scotia Voice of Women for Peace, Labour for Palestine Kjipuktuk/Halifax, Palestine Solidarity Halifax, Independent Jewish Voices, and Mount Saint Vincent University’s Muslim Student Association.
Halifax,
November 23, 2024
(Photos: TML, Secours rouge, A. Querry)
For Your Information
Land Warfare Conference in Britain --
"Pulling the
Future
into the
Present"
The Royal United
Services Institute (RUSI), an "independent"
organization in partnership with the British Army, held this year's
annual two-day conference "Pulling the Future into the Present" on July
22-23 at Church House Deans Yard, Westminster, London. Sponsoring the
conference were BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Babcock and many other
war industries. Many
of them are supplying weapons and military support to the Israeli war
of genocide in Gaza and to NATO's proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.
Although few people have heard of it, RUSI claims to be "the world's oldest and the UK's leading defence and security think tank," founded 190 years ago in the days of British colonialism. Speaking at this conference were Britain's top generals. There were 29 speakers listed from the military and military circles together with executives involved in weapons production, logistics and military research.[1] Speakers included Admiral Tony Radakin, Chief of the Defence Staff, and the Army's newly appointed Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Roland Walker KCB DSO ADC who brought the conference to a close.[2] Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's former commander-in-chief, was also given his first public speech in his new role as his country's ambassador to Britain.
Although there are scant reports of the conference, reports published revealed further the well-known fact that Britain's land warfare arrangements no longer have the pretence of giving any priority to defending Britain's shores against attack or defending the interests of the British people. General Sir Roland Walker made that very clear in his published concluding speech, "Pulling the Future into the Present."[3] He declared "a bold ambition" to "double the Army's fighting power in three years and triple it by the end of the decade" and that "our offer to the joint force must be based around three configurations of employment and two of command and control, none of these are exclusive, and all are NATO first and national second." [Workers' Weekly emphasis] He said that they all involve command and control in Europe and beyond, "making other peoples' mass more lethal" and form "partnerships in places that matter... and by illustration will include our forward land forces in Estonia and Poland, as well as the global deployments of the Land Special Operations Force, as well as our wider global footprint."[4]
He made further points on the need for British "Reaction Forces, designed for speed to react quickly to cauterize crises when they flare and where their fighting power comes from velocity, not mass," and "Response forces, ultimately organized and optimized to fight in wars at scale..." He said, "Devastating destruction from ever greater distance is the aim."
Also, whilst these headlines of the conference as stated were claiming that Britain would "double the Army's fighting power in three years and triple it by the end of the decade," General Walker tried to emphasize that this was about force and not numbers. He talked about his struggle to shake "the 'big Army' mindset, where some still believe that raw troop numbers alone determine fighting power." However, he replaced this mindset with an even more dangerous illusion of the Anglo-U.S. NATO alliance's capacity to win against superior forces. He advocated that enemies "would be met with such devastating lethality that they would be decisively defeated in the first battle and would be denied a strategy of a quick war." The only conclusion that can be drawn is that this is about wars of mass destruction and the continued criminal use of weapons of mass destruction against peoples, countries and rival powers. In other words, the dangerous warmonger mindset of these imperialists of devastating destruction from ever greater distance is indeed their aim to inculcate in their military circles.
A report on Valery Zaluzhny's speech at the conference by Tarik Cyril Amar, a German historian, also picked up this significance. He said that the genocidal slaughter committed by Israel in Gaza is more likely to leave a deeper imprint on the future of Britain's and NATO warfare methods than that of Zaluzhny's presentation on warfare in Ukraine. Pathetically, Zaluzhny, in serving the interests of NATO, tried to claim at the conference that the "changes which were invented on the battlefields of the Russian-Ukrainian war" were very likely to "determine the outlines of wars and the art of war in the 21st century." Zaluzhny advocated in what he said that Ukrainians can keep dying, while the West can field-test new military technologies. Amar remarked; "And there you have it. Ukraine's real future, according to Zaluzhny, is one where more Ukrainians will be fed into the meat-grinder of a losing war, but on the upside, the meat-grinder will be constantly modernized and updated with the newest ways of killing and dying, compliments of the West."[5]
Protestors at Newquay Airport,
October 2022 (Photo:
Phil Green and Peter Burt)
Addressing the representatives of the war industries at the conference, the Chief of the General Staff Walker said: "But I'm not just appealing to industry. Capital is flowing into the Defence sector. Obviously, there is self-interest at play in the form of profit, but that's how our system works. But investors also recognize that a lot is at stake and we share mutual values in the rules-based system as well as mutual interests in maintaining it." In other words, this is a future that threatens. It is the mutual mass destruction of countries and peoples for the profits of war industries, as well as other oligopolies and billionaires whose "rules-based system as well as mutual interests" aim to conquer all markets globally and to destroy what they cannot control.
What was revealed by Britain's top General at this conference, if this desperate stuff is adopted in these military circles, is a future rooted in hankering after Britain's colonial past, its wars of invasion and occupation across the globe in India, Africa and Asia. In recent times, it has meant the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and its support for NATO's expansion in eastern Europe and into Ukraine, provoking and escalating a proxy war with Russia. It has meant Britain's support for and arming the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. In other words, Britain's land warfare conference must be seen as their attempt to pull those in military circles into this anachronistic and bankrupt NATO warmongering mindset and actions for the future, tying Britain to NATO's war chariot. Nothing has been learned by this mindset about the need to resolve conflicts in the world peacefully. This could have been done so many times before the Ukraine war started and through the whole history of Israeli crimes in Palestine. Only division, escalation and war are NATO's stock in trade. The integration of the British armed forces into the NATO command firmly places them as an aggressive force, tied to the global war aims of the U.S., with no pretence that they are an independent force for the defence of British soil.
Our responsibility, the responsibility of the working class and people of Britain, is to fight for peace in the present and future and bring forward the new movements for changing society including in military circles. Such vital questions have to be sorted out by new arrangements in society where the people are empowered to make the decisions. Such new arrangements will be able to end these pro-war government arrangements as well as the pro-war government itself. There is a need for peaceful solutions to the conflicts in the world as well as resolving the many problems faced by society and humanity on all fronts.
Britain Must Withdraw from the
Aggressive NATO Alliance!
No to NATO!
Yes to Peace!
Notes
1. Speakers at RUSI Land Warfare Conference 2024
2. The Chief of the General Staff is the professional head of the British Army. General Sir "Roly" Walker took up his post on June 15 this year, his appointment having been announced in December 2023. See here.
3. Pulling the Future into the Present, Rusi Land War Conference, 2024 — The British Army.
4. Britain Takes the Lead Role In Enhanced Forward Presence. The army is currently deployed in over 80 countries around the world. Deployments vary in strength from single military advisors to full operational deployments — MOD webpage
5. "Meatgrinder 2.0: General Zaluzhny Recommends Regular Upgrades for the Slaughter in Ukraine," Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Ko University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory. First published in RT, July 25, 2024.
(August 11, 2024)
Opposition in 1949 to Creation of NATO
Original NATO
headquarters in Paris (Source:
German Federal Archives)
In 1949, W.E.B. Du Bois testified before the U.S. Congress to protest against a bill that would fund the new North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). His speech provides a clear framing of the central issues and contradictions involved in the original formation of NATO and its aims of establishing grounds in Europe for war against the Soviet Union.
The question of war and peace, in his mind, most starkly illustrated the divergence between the interests and aspirations of the people of the United States and those of their true enemy -- the ruling class. While the world has evolved in years since, Du Bois's critique of the war agenda still serves as a guiding light for comprehending our own times, where NATO is portrayed as a bastion of democracy, dissent is cast as treason, and tens of billions of dollars are funnelled to fuel the U.S.'s unchecked proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and a future war with China.
Through mainstream media, the public is told to accept the costs of their government's massive economic and military war-drive; no discussion is had about the origins of the present conflict and what it will mean for a global political and financial system that is on the brink of epoch-defining changes. For Du Bois in 1949, the possibility of a third world war placed a responsibility on the people of the United States to struggle for truth, for democratic rule, and for profound moral courage in the fight for a genuine and just world peace.
I appear here at the request of the Continental Peace Congress to be held in Mexico next month and of the Council on African Affairs to protest against the proposal for the United States to arm Europe for war. Congress is asked to vote down a payment of $1.5 billion together with unspecified sums in the future to implement the Atlantic pact.
This huge sum is not for education, although our schools are in desperate need of help. It is not for infantile paralysis which is sweeping the land, nor for cancer which is killing thousands. It is not for curbing and putting to work the mad waters of those great rivers which annually kill men, women, and children and destroy their homes, stock, and property, leaving muddy and stinking disease behind. This rich country has not enough money to spend for fighting ignorance, disease, and waste, or for the old-age security of its workers, but nevertheless is asked to spend a vast treasure to murder men, women, and children; to blind and cripple them and drive them insane; to destroy property by fire and flood; and for the third time in 50 years to jeopardize the whole edifice of civilization.
We are assured that these arms are for peace, not war -- just as we were promised that the pact was for peace, not arms. None but the stupid believe this assurance. Mr. Acheson's logic is flawless for fools:
Gentlemen, this a pact for peace. Thank you, gentlemen; now arms for the pact, not for war but for peace, war for peace. Russia? We do not mention Russia. We just must fight Russia. It is simple, gentlemen.
We are led to believe that this country is in danger of attack from Russia or that Russia is ready to conquer the world. We did not believe this when we asked 10,000,000 Russians to die in order to save the world from Hitler. We did not believe it when we begged Russia to help conquer Japan. We only began to believe it when we realized that the Russian concept of a state was not going to collapse but was spreading.
Assuming that you do not like and even fear Russian communism, by what right do we assume that it can be stopped by force? One idea seems to be that we can conquer the world and make it do our bidding because we are rich and have the atom bomb. Even if this were true it begs the question of the right and justice of our rule.
Why in God's name do we want to control the earth? Is it because of our success in ruling man?
- We want to rule Russia and we cannot rule Alabama.
- We tried to rule Puerto Rico and gave it the highest suicide rate in the world.
- We sought to rule China and have just confessed our failure.
- We set out to rule Germany and apparently our only result is surrender to the very forces which we fought a world war to subdue.
How have we equipped ourselves to teach the world?
- To teach the world democracy, we chose a Secretary of State trained in the democracy of South Carolina.
- When we wanted to unravel the worst economic snarl of the modern world, we chose a general trained in military tactics at West Point; and when we want to study race relations within our borders we summon a baseball player.
If we aim to rule the world we have got to learn to rule ourselves. We have got to free our science from the control of the Army and Navy. We have got to make our schools centres of real learning and not of propaganda and hysteria. We have got to clear our minds of unreasoning prejudices. We who hate n-----s and darkies, propose to control a world full of coloured people. Will they have no voice in the matter?
Without exact and careful knowledge of this world, how can we guide it? Yet we know that our knowledge of the world today is fed to us by a press whose reporters say what the owners of the press order them to say. This is not the reporters' fault. If they want to eat they will write as they are told. It is our fault, who are unwilling to pay even five cents for our morning news. Big business which pays millions for control of news gets what it wants printed. We naively assume that what we read in our press is the whole truth, when a little reflection would convince us that we have in America no complete picture of what is transpiring behind the iron curtain. [...]
(To access articles individually click on the black headline.)
Website: www.cpcml.ca • Email: editor@cpcml.ca