75th Anniversary of North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Anniversary Finds NATO Wobbling Uncontrollably
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the aggressive North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which took place on April 4, 1949. The anniversary finds NATO wobbling uncontrollably, shaking from side to side unable to find its balance in the face of its repeated failures to help establish U.S. hegemony both within Europe as well as beyond the borders of the North Atlantic. To no avail, the U.S. has been trying to establish its global hegemony since the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the related demise of its rival military alliance, the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact was established in May 1955 to offset the U.S. striving for world hegemony using NATO as its instrument of control over Europe. The Warsaw Pact, signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other republics in Central and Eastern Europe, was formally named the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance. The United States and Soviet Union were considered two superpowers who dominated world affairs by maintaining an equilibrium controlled by the use of force and threat to use force. This was mostly ensured by the threat to use nuclear weapons as a deterrent to keep the peoples' striving for peace, freedom and democracy in check.
Since its founding, the
Anglo-American imperialists have declared NATO to be a
force for
peace, freedom and democracy. In Canada's official
discourse,
discussion which challenges NATO's real aims and its
75-year
history is taboo. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the
Warsaw
Pact was dismantled, far from dismantling NATO, the U.S.
expanded NATO to the east, beyond the boundaries of the
North
Atlantic. Under U.S. command, NATO established itself in
the
Baltic countries on Russia's borders and staged a coup
d'état in
Ukraine, mobilizing and organizing neo-Nazis to slaughter
Russians living in eastern Ukraine, take over the
Ukrainian
government and threaten Russia. Canada has been the most
faithful appeaser of U.S. aims, putting itself at their
disposal
carrying out crimes against humanity second to none such
as in
Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, amongst other countries and
today,
especially in Ukraine.
Demonstration in Finland (Yorkshire CND)
Marking the anniversary of NATO's founding, the foreign ministers of the 32 NATO member countries gathered in Brussels and NATO issued a statement claiming that the alliance "has ensured peace, democracy and prosperity for its members...and one billion people on both sides of the Atlantic."[1] This at a time the world knows the trouble NATO is in with the failure of it unending proxy war in Ukraine that has caused the needless death of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians used as cannon fodder, the destruction of its economy and virtual ruin for years to come. The U.S. and NATO have not succeeded in crushing Russia nor in uniting the contending forces within the U.S. and NATO. U.S. President Joe Biden has spoken to the danger of losing NATO cohesion.
Despite this reality, Biden said on the anniversary that "[NATO] is the greatest military alliance in the history of the world. But it didn't happen by accident, nor was it inevitable. Generation after generation, the United States and our fellow Allies have chosen to come together to stand up for freedom and push back against aggression -- knowing we are stronger, and the world is safer, when we do."
From Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also claimed on the anniversary that "75 years later, NATO has become the most successful alliance the world has ever known -- and it continues to grow in size and strength... for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security." King Charles III also weighed in with a statement that day saying that "its core task endures: to protect the one billion citizens of our NATO Allies. This vital Alliance continues to thrive and adapt in the face of new threats and challenges."
Canada's cardboard cutout Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, "For 75 years, NATO has been the cornerstone of transatlantic security. Created in the aftermath of the Second World War, it unites 32 countries around collective defence -- the principle that we are stronger together. On this milestone anniversary, we celebrate the Alliance and our fellow Allies for their contributions to protecting freedom, democracy, and the rule of law." He went on to promote Canada's role in NATO, noting that it is a founding member that has been active in all NATO operations, and that Canada is the seventh largest funder of NATO and is increasing military spending.
All of this is said at a time NATO is not united and, despite acquiring new members, its strength is a matter of definition given the repeated failures of the U.S. wars of aggression it has participated in. This is underscored by the U.S. defeat and hasty departure from Afghanistan leaving its NATO partners to fend for themselves and also rapidly depart. The U.S. has since imposed sanctions and frozen Afghan assets forcing the Afghanistanis to suffer and face deprivation. On everyone's mind is the likely defeat of the U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the peoples of all the NATO member countries are protesting the ever-rising expenditures on armaments and armed forces and hosting foreign troops and military bases, as well as the environmental destruction, loss of national sovereignty and crimes against humanity NATO carries out in the name of peace, freedom and democracy.
Saying NATO has "ensured peace, democracy and prosperity for its members" is pathetically glib, to say the least. Whose "peace, democracy and prosperity" does NATO and its leading nations stand for? There are 8 billion people in 195 countries identified by the UN which are not benefited by NATO, including the one billion pertaining to the 32 countries that NATO claims to represent.
With its founding, NATO was deliberately established outside the United Nations and its internationally recognized realm of international law, conventions and institutions. An aim was to undermine the movement of the peoples worldwide for peace, freedom and democracy on the basis of carrying out denazification and holding the Nazis and fascists to account. NATO put the Nazis who escaped justice into prominent positions from the beginning. It targeted the Soviet Union and holus bolus promoted the Cold War outlook to deprive the peoples of a vantage point of their own. In this regard, it was instrumental in converting the worldwide anti-fascist united front of the peoples of the world into two camps, one which was pro-Soviet and one which was pro-U.S., thus limiting the revolutionary initiative of the people within the post-war circumstances. Within this situation, the covert agencies in the service of the Anglo-American imperialists carried out wars of aggression, coups d'état, assassinations and kept anti-fascist and communist fighters in concentration camps for decades, as in south Korea, Greece and other countries. They propped up brutal dictatorships and committed innumerable crimes in the name of democracy and freedom.
To establish U.S. hegemony, NATO has also operated in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean as well as Oceania. Its role in present conflicts, in addition to the use of force, bombings, destruction and the humanitarian catastrophes it has participated in since the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1989-1991, is to spread disinformation on a grand scale. Its criminality can be seen in the fact that since last year, NATO has made no statements condemning the occupation of Palestine by Israel and the current U.S./Israeli campaign of slaughtering the Palestinian people and committing genocide. When questioned about the hypocrisy that NATO only interferes between Russia and Ukraine, neither of which are NATO members, the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, claimed that "Ukraine and Gaza are very different." This explained neither NATO's role in the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, nor the disregard for the genocide of the Palestinian people. NATO member states, like all signatories to the Genocide Convention have the responsibility to prevent and punish genocide.
Current NATO war games include its "Steadfast Defender 2024" war drills, currently taking place until May 31, throughout what it calls "the trans-Atlantic" region. They are the largest war games in the last 30 years, featuring some 90,000 troops, from all 32 member states. Meanwhile, NATO is carrying out all kinds of other war preparations. On April 9, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius announced that the "Lithuanian-German partnership" is setting up "Panzerbrigade 45" which will involve 4,800 soldiers on the borders of Russia when it becomes fully operational in 2027. Alongside already large military bases of the U.S. and British forces in Eastern European countries on the borders of Russia and Belarus, all such initiatives further endanger the peace.
The more NATO tries to
survive by
expanding way beyond the shores of the north Atlantic,
not only
to threaten Russia directly on its borders, but also into
Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the more
the
peoples of the world are rising against it. The peoples
of the
world desire peace, freedom and democracy more than ever.
They
desire an end to all the wars of aggression conducted by
imperialist powers and their toadies, beginning with the
U.S.
imperialists but also the British and old European
colonial
powers.
On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of NATO, NATO's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg once again claimed it is crucial for the "West" to continue to support Ukraine in its war for "freedom and democracy" and "our values" against Russia "as long as it takes." Stoltenberg's refusal to make sure negotiations take place with Russia to reach a settlement which will end the war shows the desperation of NATO to make sure the war continues for years in the hopes of saving NATO.
NATO's failures are such that these contradictions within NATO are deepening, making it impossible for NATO to function smoothly under U.S. command as has been the case in the past. Reports from the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting held in Brussels on April 3 and 4, reveal the extent of the dissatisfaction of member countries with NATO's Russia and China policies as well as with the factional struggle within the United States itself. Various European states are beginning to panic in the face of the impact the U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine is having on their own economies, causing upsurges in protests of workers and farmers in Europe where the people oppose the diversion of their economies to cover U.S. war funding.
In this vein, on April 4
at the
NATO Foreign Ministers' meeting Stoltenberg announced a
proposal
for a new NATO "Mission for Ukraine," a mechanism to
secure
directly a five-year military aid package from all 32
members of
the alliance of up to $108 billion to supply "lethal
weapons to
Ukraine." Reports, however, say that "none of the details
have
been worked out" and it will have to be approved at the
NATO
summit in July. The proposal would give the NATO alliance
control of the U.S.-led Ramstein weapons support group
which is
at present an informal group of countries supplying
weapons to
Ukraine from individual countries.[2] The
move
would further expose the Anglo/U.S. NATO alliance as the
sole
weapons supplier and escalator of the war in Ukraine
against
Russia and curtail the establishment by individual
countries of
bi-lateral arrangements with Ukraine.
A hysteria has arisen that should Donald Trump become the next the U.S. president and move to dismantle NATO, the arms producers will be protected. It is called "Trump-proofing" weapons supplies to Ukraine. The U.S. would have to supply additional money for Ukraine, but now would have to supply it via NATO.
At the same time that the NATO military alliance celebrates its 75th anniversary, the U.S.-led aggressive alliance is using pressure and deals to secure support and threaten China by arming and sending special forces to Taiwan. This includes $8 billion in funding, including for development of submarine infrastructure, a direct threat to the region as U.S. submarines are known to carry nuclear weapons.
No to NATO! Yes to Peace!
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 4 - April 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M5400411.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca