The aggressive military alliance NATO is holding its 2024 summit in Washington, DC from July 9 to 11 on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of its founding. Actions against NATO will be taking place in Canada to express the demand of Canadians for Canada to get out of NATO and for NATO to be dismantled. The actions also oppose the U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine and oppose stepped-up war spending and war preparations.

The largest actions will take place in Washington, DC where specific demands include: a negotiated peaceful resolution of the U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia; an end to the genocide being committed by NATO partner, the Zionist state of Israel; and for NATO to be disbanded.

The NATO webpage promoting the 2024 summit says that "32 NATO Allies will meet again in Washington, DC to make key decisions on how to continue to protect their 1 billion citizens as the world faces the most dangerous security environment since the Cold War." Besides its 32 members, NATO boasts that it has "partnerships" with more than 40 non-member countries and organizations, including the Zionist state of Israel.

The fact is that NATO's actions regularly threaten, endanger, maim and kill not only the 1 billion citizens it claims to protect, but also the other 7.1 billion people whose countries are not part of NATO. This is, of course, not mentioned.

NATO was founded in 1949 as a military and political instrument the U.S. required to cement the Cold War at the end of World War II as the Anglo-American imperialists set about dividing the world based on racist and anti-communist ideological considerations. Today, its aims continue to divide the world on the basis of racist, anti-communist aims which promote the U.S. imperialist striving for global hegemony espoused since the end of the Cold War in 1989-1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, down to today. In the U.S. and elsewhere, NATO leaders talk about the U.S. as being the world leader, the superpower and the country responsible for world peace, thus excusing the crimes committed by saying they are integral to being the superpower. And without discussion this is given as analysis. The logic is that it is the superpower because of its economic capacity, military projection, cultural influences, and so on. That is the idea which is projected – of a superpower that sits atop the world. It is not limited to a nation-state or its territorial integrity. The image of the world we live in is given from this perspective.

Evidence of this comes in the speech given by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, at the Wilson Center during his recent visit to Washington on June 17. Stoltenberg underscored the reactionary aims NATO continues to espouse today. Russia and China oppose NATO, he said, "because they know that in NATO, the United States has something they don't have, 31 friends and Allies, which help to advance U.S. interests, multiply U.S. power, and keep Americans safe. Alone, the United States represents a quarter of the world economy, but together with NATO Allies, we represent half of the world's economic might, and half of the world's military might. So together, we are much stronger." He went on to affirm the central role U.S. imperialist interests have played in driving NATO: "For 75 years, the United States has been the driving force at NATO. [...] And for 75 years, keeping NATO united and strong has been in America's national security interest," he said.

All this hyperbolic rhetoric cannot cover up that NATO unity is a figment of the imagination of those who do not want to face the fact that the world and humankind are leaving them behind. Stoltenberg's fanciful dreams of U.S. and NATO magnificence are echoed by Canada's cardboard cut out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who never upholds the international rule of law but repeats the U.S. imperialist nonsense about standing united for 75 years to defend its rules-based international order where it makes up the rules as it goes along. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) announced on July 2 that Trudeau will attend the NATO summit from July 8 to 11, 2024. According to the PMO:

"For 75 years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has underpinned the rules-based international order. As threats to peace and security become increasingly complex and attempts to destabilize our collective defence become more sophisticated, Canada and its NATO Allies are standing united -- dedicated to defending democracy, security, and freedom."

"The NATO Alliance stands steadfast -- protecting freedom and in defence of democracy. NATO was founded 75 years ago, and Canada has been part of nearly every operation in the Alliance. At this year's Summit, we will strengthen our work to uphold the global order that underpins our prosperity and sovereignty," the PMO quotes Trudeau saying.

In a July 5 press release, NATO quotes its outgoing Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg saying, "At the Washington Summit, we will demonstrate NATO's unity and strength once again -- in support of Ukraine, and to keep all our people and values safe."

While NATO claims to be united by shared values, it is saying such things even after major debacles in June concerning Ukraine -- its major preoccupation at this time -- show a pronounced lack of unity. At the NATO Defence Ministers' meeting on June 13-14 in Brussels, NATO was forced to abandon its "principle" of consensus and adopt its Ukraine Support Plan without Hungary's approval, a country that has declined any involvement in the U.S./NATO proxy war for the foreseeable future. The "Global Summit on Peace in Ukraine" held in Switzerland, June 15-16 followed immediately afterward and was an unmitigated failure. Convened on a fraudulent basis without the participation of Russia, there was no intention of achieving peace in Ukraine which is why it failed to produce any concrete outcome. Far from making any advances, the decision by the G7, which met following the meeting in Switzerland, to keep financing Ukraine with money stolen from interest on seized Russian assets, merely underscores the hopeless situation in which the U.S. and NATO allies find themselves in.

Then, on June 27, it was announced that the President of Bulgaria, Rumen Radev, would not lead or participate in the country's delegation to the NATO summit, due to internal differences over the country's positions on the war in Ukraine. Radev said he was not consulted while the government worked out the official position of the country. Radev is said to not support the pro-NATO/anti-Russia positions of others in the Bulgarian government. As president, Radev is commander-in-chief of the Bulgarian military.

On July 2, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban began an international trip that started with a visit to Ukraine, then Russia, and then China to push for a ceasefire followed by accelerated peace talks. It is also known that the peoples of Europe do not support their government's Ukraine policy, evidence of which is the current spate of opposition to Macron in France, the defeat of Rishi Sunak in Britain, opposition in Poland and other countries. Sustained opposition has come from farmers in Poland and elsewhere against the negative effects on their livelihood and production caused by anti-Russia sanctions and other measures, as well as cheap imports of Ukrainian grain to bolster Ukraine's failing economy which has been taken over lock, stock and barrel by international banks and oligopolies.

Add to this the fact that one of NATO's nine "global partners" is not exactly on side with its warmongering lies about its proxy war in Ukraine and support for genocide against the Palestinian people either. Colombia's President Gustavo Petro refused to attend the concocted conference in Switzerland to supposedly find a solution to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. He said it was not a free forum to discuss the path to peace between Russia and Ukraine, that all the conclusions were already predetermined, and that instead of talking about how to prolong the war Europe should be talking about how to end it. He has also made repeated un-NATO-like pronouncements about the genocide in Palestine, comparing the actions of Israel to those of the Nazis. At a July 5 concert funded by the Petro government "for hope and solidarity with the Palestinian people" a mammoth Palestinian flag saying Stop the Genocide covered the facade of the national Senate building in Bolivar Square, Bogota.

Canada's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland hailed NATO's nefarious mission to continue dividing the world on a racist and ideological basis plainly enough when she spoke on October 11, 2022 at the U.S. geopolitical think tank, the Brookings Institute. Railing against Russia's Special Military Operation in Ukraine which she called an "invasion of Ukraine," and "China's increasingly aggressive wolf-diplomacy," she said that "to respond to these challenges to the U.S. rules-based international order, the first and most fundamental pillar is that we, the world's democracies, must strengthen our connections with each other... to deepen and expand our core military alliance -- NATO."

Far from it, it is the peoples of the world who play the decisive role in bringing in a mass democracy in their service. The days of NATO are over. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) calls on all peace-loving Canadians to take action on this occasion to demand that Canada Get Out of NATO!, that NATO be dismantled and to Make Canada a Zone for Peace.

Origins of NATO

The origins of NATO lie in the betrayal by the Anglo-American imperialists of the agreements arrived at by the Allied Powers during the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences held in 1945, aimed primarily at denazifying, demilitarizing, democratizing and decentralizing Germany.

The peoples of the world had emerged from World War II as one humanity, marching to the drumbeat of peace, freedom and democracy. The number of people who joined the communist parties which were in the vanguard of the fight against Nazi-fascism and militarist Japan is a significant indication of the peoples' enthusiasm for opening a path for progress by achieving the liberation of their countries from colonial rule and establishing social systems which put the needs of the people, not the capitalists, at the centre of their concerns. In 1935 there were 81 communist parties in the world with 1,860,000 members, whereas after World War II there were 70 such parties with more than 30,000,000 members. The unprecedented growth of the communist parties of all countries which had stood in the forefront of the fight to defeat Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and militarist Japan, was in stark contrast to what happened to the armed forces of countries such as the USA, Canada and Poland, whose soldiers and equipment sat idle in Britain for several years until their military and political commanders deciphered which way the war was going.

In Europe, a continent with vast resources and a socialized economy, the most dramatic manifestations of popular resistance and the people's role in rejecting the models of the liberal European state institutions that had failed to solve the problem of fascism and anti-Semitism are little known today. However, the majority or near-majority results for the communists and their allies from the anti-fascist resistance in post-war elections held in Belgium, France, Italy, Hungary and Czechoslovakia from 1946 to 1948 speak to the existence of a revolutionary crisis for the Anglo-American powers, the European bourgeoisie and their social and economic system. When the city parliament of Berlin constituted in November 1946 held elections, the two workers' parties held a two-thirds majority.

Allusions to the French Revolution in 1789 were common and revolutionary symbolism became fashionable once more. Writing of the ferment in France, the English historian Rod Kedward says:

"The picture emerges of a period of euphoria when Resisters bridged the local vacuum of power with an assertive display of popular, patriotic ideals, setting up local committees to administer supplies, to organize recruitment for the army, and to relaunch their committees on a more equal, just and fraternal footing. There have been few occasions in French history since 1789 when the slogans of the Revolution have commanded such universal respect. For a month at least, before the weight of restructuring the economy and continuing the war began to sap people's optimism, there was a widespread belief that French society could be recast to give equal opportunities to everyone. It was an ideal to which resisters look back with pride. It was a period, say many, when very ordinary men and women were momentarily in charge of their own history."[1]

All of the developments at that time were of one humanity forged in the crucible of their common struggle and united front to defeat Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and militarist Japan. The theatre of war was not only Europe but also Asia and Africa. USians, Canadians and many from Latin America and the Caribbean joined the anti-fascist front in myriad ways including in partisan detachments in many countries, beginning with the International Brigades that fought to save the Spanish Republic in 1939. Huge sacrifices were made to achieve the anti-fascist victory.

Making sure imperialist aggression, war and fascism would never again plague humankind was the order of the day. NATO was created to block these aspirations. It has a nefarious history of anti-communism and counterrevolutionary clandestine activities to undermine the movements of the peoples for their own empowerment by serving the U.S. striving for world hegemony no matter what crimes are committed to achieve it. But the peoples of the world, then and now, continue to ensure the forward march of progress and the aim of humanity for societies fit for human existence.

On the occasion of the NATO Summit in Washington, DC which celebrates the 75th anniversary of NATO's founding, this TML Supplement carries articles on events related to the establishment of NATO.

Note

1. Cited in France and the Second World War: Occupation, Collaboration and Resistance, by Peter Davies, Routledge (London, 2001).

Summit Agenda Confirms Imperialists' Desperation and Stepped-Up War Preparations

NATO is desperate to put in place multi-year commitments of all its members to finance and arm Ukraine for the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia it is waging "to the last Ukrainian." The Washington Summit plans to override the democratic will of any people for a change of direction to end involvement in the U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine by having all NATO members commit to legally binding deals to support war in Ukraine "for as long as it takes." All of this is carried out without the consent of any people of member countries which has caused a big backlash throughout Europe and also the U.S.

Such is the "democracy" NATO stands for.

In a NATO press release on July 5, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg elaborated the focus of the Washington Summit on the U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine, to try to prop up that country financially and militarily, despite the failure of prior actions in that regard to prevent its eventual bankruptcy and defeat on the battlefield. "I expect heads of state and government will agree a substantial package for Ukraine," he stated. "NATO will take over the coordination and provision of most international security assistance," with a command led by a three-star general and several hundred personnel working at NATO headquarters in Germany and at logistical nodes in the eastern part of the Alliance, he said.

A logistics node is a point that connects a supply chain logistics network underscoring how the mighty arm of the U.S. imperialists takes over Europe. It is also noteworthy that a three-star general will be in command, when the U.S. has 43 four-star generals. Nonetheless, the direction seems clear enough, using NATO, the U.S. will continue to cause trouble and not permit a lasting peace in Europe while NATO countries increasingly foot the bill. The announcement is an unmistakable hedge against an erratic and unpredictable presidency under Donald Trump or an incompetent one such as that under Biden. The demand that all NATO members commit to legally binding deals to support the war in Ukraine is a clear indication of the fact that NATO is anything but united.

NATO countries will be expected to make a financial pledge for Ukraine, as well to provide more immediate military support, bilateral security agreements and "deepened military interoperability." Interoperability refers to providing Ukraine's military with NATO standard arms and training.

Even with the inevitable military defeat of Ukraine, Stoltenberg and NATO continue to dangle the carrot of membership for Ukraine, saying that all of these elements "constitute a bridge to NATO membership and a very strong package for Ukraine at the summit" and that "Ukraine is moving closer to NATO."

A U.S. State Department official told reporters just a few days ahead of the Washington Summit, "We are pulling together a series of deliverables that will serve" in "essence as a bridge to membership." This would include the institutionalization of Western support and training for Ukraine, an annual $40 billion euro (U.S.$43.3 billion) political financial pledge, a commitment to the country's membership status, and the appointment of a NATO envoy to Ukraine. A "bridge" to NATO, is said to include concrete military aid and training to modernize the armed forces, and a pledge to declare Ukraine's path into the Western military alliance "irreversible." Multiple top NATO officials said recently this could be seen as progress toward membership, Euractiv reports. However, several NATO diplomats expressed doubts about whether using this particular language to mark Ukraine's progress is good for the membership process or the credibility of that process, as NATO is essentially promising Ukraine that its membership is inevitable. The fact that other European countries which joined NATO since the collapse of the former Soviet Union had to jump through hoops to qualify for membership but the same standards do not apply to Ukraine does not create goodwill within NATO either.

Since the 2023 NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, NATO is said to be struggling to find a balance between recognizing Ukraine's toeing the line with respect to reforms and modernization of its armed forces, while moderating its expectations that it will become a NATO member sooner than later. Ultimately, one U.S.-driven faction within NATO does not want Ukraine to be able to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Charter and open direct military conflict with Russia. The fact remains, however, that the U.S. weapons and personnel and those of other countries are already directly involved in attacks on Russia from Ukraine and other bases in neighbouring countries. This seriously increases the scope of the conflict which, all told, makes it unlikely the matter will be in any way settled when leaders arrive in Washington on July 9.

The second major focus of the summit is NATO's war preparations, especially in Europe. At the summit, NATO countries will be expected to endorse a pledge to strengthen transatlantic war production, which it calls "defence industrial cooperation." At a time when the financial crises and neo-liberal anti-social offensive are wreaking profound insecurity on working people throughout NATO member countries, Stoltenberg proudly exclaimed that 23 NATO members are now spending at least two per cent of their GDP on defence. Stoltenberg spoke of "enhanced ballistic missile defences" in Europe via a new Aegis Ashore base to be established in Poland. This is another threat against the aspirations of the Polish people not to be used as pawns in a war against Russia.

In 2023, NATO members spent in excess of $1.2 trillion waging and preparing for war. Europe spent U.S.$380 billion which amounts to two per cent of their combined GDP, while the U.S. spent more than $916 billion. The lion's share goes to five U.S.-based weapons producers. By contrast, the UN reports that in 2021 as many as 828 million people experienced hunger, a figure that has increased by another 150 million since the global pandemic. It would take, according to Oxfam, about $23 billion a year to meet the needs of people facing starvation and acute malnutrition and around $37 billion a year until 2030 to eliminate both extreme and chronic hunger.

Stoltenberg in a June 17 speech in the U.S. praising U.S.-NATO relations declared that NATO warmongering and pressure on its members to increase military spending "is good for Europe and good for America. Especially since much of this extra money is spent here in the United States. NATO creates a market for defence sales. Over the last two years more than two-thirds of European defence acquisitions were made with U.S. firms. That is more than 140 billion U.S. dollars' worth of contracts with U.S. defence companies. So, NATO is good for U.S. security, good for U.S. industry, and good for U.S. jobs."

Canada, in its latest budget released in April, allocated billions to increase Canada's integration into the U.S. war economy and wars of aggression worldwide. For example: $38 billion over 20 years to upgrade NORAD; $11.5 billion over 20 years to increase NATO's common budget; $3.8 billion over 20 years to acquire new critical weapons systems, replenish stocks of ammunition, and improve digital systems; $3.5 billion to renew and expand Operation REASSURANCE, the Canadian Armed Forces' largest overseas mission contributing to NATO forward military presence in Central and Eastern Europe and $14 billion to support the U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine. The list goes on and the NATO Washington Summit will demand even more, setting two per cent of GDP for military spending as the minimum expected of every NATO Member. Canada is projecting its defence-to-GDP ratio to reach 1.76 per cent by 2029-30, at a ballpark of C$57.8 billion annually.

Expansion of NATO's narrow warmongering agenda into Asia Pacific and Oceania is the third focus of the summit in DC, through what NATO calls its "Global Partnerships." The Secretary General has invited the leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea to the Summit to further deepen cooperation, including on support to Ukraine.

Perhaps Stoltenberg has not seen the news that in a matter of 13 days since it was launched, a total of 1,024,200 people in south Korea have signed a petition to request the immediate presentation of an impeachment motion against President Yoon Suk Yeol, which is posted on the National Assembly's petition website. The people are holding the Yoon government to account for numerous misdeeds against the people, not the least of which is its escalation of the danger of war, under the tutelage of the U.S. imperialists.

NATO's 75th anniversary summit will be a boondoggle on a massive scale. Canadians can expect that large amounts of money will be spent to give the appearance that it has value but it doesn't. It is a huge drain on the resources of member countries, causes nothing but death and destruction and all attempts to keep it going pose serious dangers to the cause of the peoples for peace, democracy and freedom. The only agenda the people should entertain today is to dismantle NATO as soon as possible.

Statement of Prime Minister's Office

The statement from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) on the occasion of Justin Trudeau's participation in the NATO Summit on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of NATO's founding, mechanically repeats the fabricated war hysteria that he and his NATO allies use to justify their arming and financing of the Ukraine regime.

The statement deceptively opposes "Russian aggression and destabilization" as well as "Russia's unjustifiable war of aggression" without mentioning that the war against the Ukrainian people, in particular the Donbass people, did not begin with the Russian military operation in 2022. After the U.S.-sponsored coup in 2014, in which Canada played a major role, and the declaration of independence by the people in the eastern regions, there was a brutal war launched by the central government against the new republics -- the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic. An anti-Russian cabal of Nazis was brought to power under the aegis of the U.S. and NATO. These Nazis had taken thousands of lives by the time of the Russian intervention in the form of a Special Military Operation was launched in 2022 to accomplish the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine which threaten Russia's security.

It was explained at the outset of the Russian Special Military Operation, and again recently, that the Russian forces were invited to assist in defending the people of the new republics against the abuses of the neo-Nazis which had taken power in Ukraine, against them. Russia launched the Special Military Operation under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. Article 51 stipulates: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security."

This reality is never mentioned by Trudeau or his collaborators. It shows what they mean when they pledge allegiance to a "rules-based international order." When those that the U.S./NATO deem to be their rivals appear to violate an international "rule," they issue howls of indignation, but when the people proclaim their right to self-determination, they respond with violence and destruction, without regard for any "rules."

What war aims of the "international rules-based order" Canada upholds can be seen in the PMO's statement which adds that Prime Minister Trudeau is attending the NATO Summit to:

"... reaffirm Canada's commitment to Euro-Atlantic security and stability, particularly in the face of ongoing Russian aggression and destabilization. He will highlight Canada's contributions to NATO's collective defence efforts across Europe, including through Operation REASSURANCE, Canada's largest active overseas military deployment.

"At the Summit, Prime Minister Trudeau will meet with NATO Allies and international partners to strengthen Euro-Atlantic security. Together, NATO leaders will explore ways to bolster collective deterrence and enhance defence capabilities and co-operation, while addressing other ongoing and emerging threats to the rules-based international order.

"While in Washington, the Prime Minister will meet with members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives to advance opportunities for Canadian businesses, workers, and communities across the country – as part of our Team Canada effort to promote and defend Canada's interests in and with the United States.

"Prime Minister Trudeau and NATO Allies will be joined by the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for a NATO-Ukraine Council meeting focused on enhancing support for Ukraine and further responding to Russia's unjustifiable war of aggression. During this meeting, Prime Minister Trudeau will underline the importance of continued military, financial, and humanitarian support to Ukraine. Throughout his visit, the Prime Minister will reaffirm Canada's commitment to strengthening shared defence priorities and security partnerships. ...

"Current Canadian contributions to NATO include:

- Supporting NATO assurance and deterrence measures in Central and Eastern Europe through Operation REASSURANCE. With approximately 1,500 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members currently deployed, it is Canada's largest international military operation. Canada has been leading the NATO multinational Battlegroup, soon to be Brigade, in Latvia since 2017. In July 2023, Prime Minister Trudeau announced the renewal and expansion of Operation REASSURANCE, committing $2.6 billion to a three-year mandate, with up to 2,200 CAF troops continuously deployed.

- Deploying His Majesty's Canadian Ship Charlottetown to join and assume flagship duties of Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 (SNMG2) as part of Operation REASSURANCE in the Mediterranean Sea. The Royal Canadian Navy's involvement in SNMG2 demonstrates Canada's continued participation in NATO and strengthens military co-operation with our Allies and partners in the region.

- Hosting the NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence, in Montreal, Quebec, and NATO's North American Regional Office of the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

- Continuing to support training and capacity-building efforts in the Middle East under Operation IMPACT, including through NATO Mission Iraq, which was set up under Canadian command, and contributing to lasting security and stability in the country.

- Providing CAF personnel support to the NATO-led international peace support operation in Kosovo through Operation KOBOLD.

"In Budget 2024 and Our North, Strong and Free: A Renewed Vision for Canada's Defence, the Government of Canada announced $8.1 billion over five years and $73 billion over 20 years in new defence spending. This builds on historic investments the federal government has made to date to support members of our Armed Forces, strengthen Canada's defence capabilities, and respond to global challenges.

"Since 2022, Canada has committed over $19 billion in multifaceted support to Ukraine. This includes $4 billion in military aid and equipment donations, such as Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks and an armoured recovery vehicle, armoured combat support vehicles, anti-tank weapons, and other arms and equipment. Other assistance includes $12.4 billion in financial assistance, $352.5 million in humanitarian assistance, $442 million in development assistance, and over $210 million in security and stabilization programming."

Thirty Years of NATO Failures

The fact is that NATO comes to its 75th Anniversary more fractured than ever as a result of 30 years of failures since the former Soviet Union collapsed in 1989-1991. It should have been dismantled since its "enemy" was no longer.

Scott Taylor, writing on June 26 for espritdecorps.ca of the private dinner hosted by the NATO Association of Canada for NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, pointed out:

"In addition to Stoltenberg using the occasion to browbeat the Canadian government into spending more on national defence, the attendees gathered to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the military alliance. The original Charter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was signed on April 4, 1949 by the original 12 members, of which Canada was proud to be among."

Taylor asks "just what milestones exactly" would "Stoltenberg and the NATO groupies making merry at the 75th anniversary celebration last week" be celebrating? He writes:

"Well in 1999 NATO violated international law by bombing Serbia for 78 days. After an unexpected stubborn resistance by the Serbs, that tiny country finally submitted to the NATO alliance.

"Although it was not until 2008 that the disputed province of Kosovo declared itself an independent state, the desired result of NATO redrawing the map of Europe through military force remains a political mess. Kosovo still does not have full status at the UN as 89 of 193 member nations still recognize Kosovo as the sovereign territory of Serbia.

"Within the European Union there are five member states blocking Kosovo from membership for the same reason. In a recent article on Kosovo, Matthew Karnitschnig of Politico wrote: 'Put simply, even after decades of American aid and support, the country remains an economic and political basket case.'

"The article also outlined that Kosovo has one of the lowest per-capita GDP's in Europe, a poverty rate of over 20 per cent, and is plagued by corruption and political turmoil.

"So, not much to celebrate there. In September 2001, in the wake of 9-11 all NATO members heeded U.S. President George Bush's invocation of Article 5 of the NATO Charter. While possibly reassuring to the U.S. public, almost every UN member also agree to be an ally in the War against Terror. So no biggie.

"Then there was the Afghanistan fiasco. NATO troops, including Canadians, fought for more than a decade in that country. The end result was a failure in 2021 when the Taliban took over. Better to forget that one.

"In 2011 NATO took the lead role in fulfilling United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 which called for a no-fly zone over the skies of Libya. The NATO generals promptly empowered themselves to bomb the bejeezus out of President Muammar Gaddaffi's loyalist forces. After 10 months of aerial bombardment the various rebel factions succeeded in murdering Gaddaffi.

"However the fractious rebel forces immediately began fighting each other and Libya was plunged into a bloody anarchy that continues to this day. So not really worthy of a Victory Parade, but nonetheless Canada staged a full ceremony with flypast on Parliament Hill to celebrate NATO's defeat of Libya.

"In 2018 NATO agreed to assist the U.S. coalition in Iraq. While the NATO flag may still fly over some heavily guarded Green Zone buildings in Baghdad, the alliance has no more chance of a successful exit from Iraq than we did with Afghanistan."

Militant Opposition to Visit of NATO Secretary General to Canada

Ottawa, June 19

On June 19, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made a visit to the U.S. and then Canada in preparation for the NATO Summit in Washington from July 9 to 11.

Quebeckers and Canadians, as they have for all of NATO's existence, militantly opposed the warmongering alliance and the visit of its Secretary General. A militant picket was held in front of the Prime Minister's Office on June 19, firmly stating that Stoltenberg is persona non grata and that to attain peace and security both at home and on the world scale, NATO must be dismantled. The picket was called by Youth for Democratic Renewal, with the participation of various anti-war activists and organizations from the National Capital Region. Protests were also held in Calgary and Edmonton.

Many people walking or driving by the Prime Minister's Office took note, expressing approval and support. Stoltenberg's visit was a somewhat hush-hush affair, yet what U.S./NATO is up to at this time deserves to be highlighted and brought to everyone's attention, whether it be its role in prolonging the conflict in Ukraine, advocating direct NATO involvement in attacks on Russian territory; its support of Zionist Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza; its constant calls to increase military funding to feed the war industry at the expense of the social sectors; or its ongoing war exercises throughout the world.

During his visit, Stoltenberg met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, was the guest of honour at a reception hosted by the NATO Association of Canada and the NATO Parliamentary Association, and did an interview on CTV's Question Period.

At the reception he received the Louis St-Laurent Award of Excellence, the highest award given by the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) "to a CBA member in recognition of a lifetime of outstanding service and professional achievement to the benefit of the legal profession, the CBA and society at large." St-Laurent was Prime Minister from 1948 to 1957. It was under his aegis that Canada became a founding member of NATO on April 30, 1949 when St-Laurent signed Canada's Instrument of Accession. Thus on this basis, the ruling circles who are desperate to prop up NATO and its warmongering, conferred this award on Stoltenberg, who is not a lawyer, a Canadian, or a member of the CBA nor does he speak on behalf of any Quebeckers or Canadians.

In his speech at the reception, Stoltenberg saw fit to opine on Canada's role in NATO and reinforce the NATO edict for increased military spending of its members, matters in which working people in Canada and Quebec are blocked from having a say. He praised Canada's role in NATO warmongering directed at Russia, in particular its leadership of the NATO battlegroup in Latvia. He outlined the importance of Canada's financial and training support for Ukraine, adding that Canada has provided "billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine including air defence systems, battle tanks and F-16 pilot training." He underscored that strong support to Ukraine will be "the most urgent" priority for the upcoming Washington Summit.

Stoltenberg added that he welcomed Canada's announcement of increased military spending but urged Canada to join with the 23 other NATO member countries who have committed two per cent of their GDP to the military. Increased funding "will add billions in the coming years, including by purchasing high-end new capabilities, modernizing NORAD, and by investing in fifth generation F-35 aircraft."

Stoltenberg said that he expected all NATO members to meet the two per cent "guideline," adding that as a former parliamentarian and prime minister he knows "it is always easier to spend money on health, education, infrastructure and many other important tasks than to invest more in defence" but that in the context of the threats confronting the Alliance it was necessary to step up and "prioritize defence investments."

For the ruling circles in Canada to invite such a figure to Canada to openly dictate the direction of its economy, while at the same time permit the international secret intelligence agencies to clamour about supposed foreign interference in Canada's affairs and enact laws according to their say-so would be laughable and a cruel irony, except for the serious danger posed by having Canada further drawn into NATO warmongering and the U.S. war machine.

Calgary, June 19

NATO's Recruitment Woes

The NATO 2024 Washington Summit gets under way and plans are being laid to pressure countries to boost their military budgets in support of U.S./NATO goals, to increase funds and weapons for Ukraine to "win" the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia and to widen NATO's warmongering on behalf of U.S. imperialism around the world. One challenge facing many NATO member countries at this time is recruiting young people for the military.

In December 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) noted that "during fiscal year 2023, the military services collectively missed recruiting goals by about 41,000 recruits." One of the main reasons for this shortfall according to the DOD is "Generation Z, the generation born from 1997 to 2012, generally has a low trust in institutions." The same report noted that 20 years ago at least 75 per cent of American youth considered a career in the military. Today it is less than 50 per cent. To boost military recruitment, amongst other things, the DOD is urging members of Congress to step up their efforts to hype the military among their young constituents. The DOD proposes using "gaming" to engage young children through video games that promote war and aggression, popularizing the military in sports and community events and so on.

In Canada, a founding member and champion of NATO, the military's efforts to boost numbers are also in crisis. Earlier this year, Minister of Defence Bill Blair said that the Canadian armed forces has a shortage of at least 16,500 members and that the military's failure to boost recruitment is leading to a "death spiral." To address this crisis, in 2022, the Canadian military lifted its ban on permanent residents (PR) applying to join the armed forces. The CBC reports that within a year the Canadian military received more than 21,000 applications. However, to date, just over 100 people have been accepted because of the enhanced security screening imposed on this group of applicants. Of the 21,000 initial PR applicants, 15,000 have chosen to abandon their applications because of the long wait times and onerous security demands.

In a 2022 poll commissioned by the Canadian Department of National Defence as part of preparations for the Royal Canadian Air Force's 100th anniversary celebrations in 2024, 58 per cent of those polled said they were "not likely at all to join" the air force and another 21 per cent indicated they were "not very likely to join." For the army, the numbers were 57 and 22 per cent respectively and for the navy the numbers were even higher, 61 per cent and 22 per cent respectively.

A decade-long campaign by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to have women make up 25 per cent of the military by 2026 has also been a bust. Statistics on the representation of women in the CAF as of May 2023 show they make up 16.06 per cent of total regular forces members; 16.99 per cent of Primary Reserve Officers, 17.48 per cent of Primary Reserve NCMs and 17.39 per cent of Total Primary Reserve members. They make up 16.48 per cent of Total Regular Force and Primary Reserve members.

Other NATO countries are facing similar problems. In Britain, it is reported that there is an annual hiring shortfall of 1,100 troops even though the government has contracted out recruitment to Capita, a private company. Between 2022 and 2023, there was a seven per cent drop in applicants to the German military.

Not only are Britain and Germany and other countries such as France facing recruitment challenges, another problem is military personnel quitting. In 2023, more than 1,500 soldiers left the Bundeswehr, the German armed forces, which has about 183,000 active personnel. French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu noted in March, "At NATO meetings, we can talk about equipment, but now we also talk about the level of retention." France plans to address this problem by helping military personnel find housing, subsidizing health care and child care, and enhancing wages and pensions.

Some NATO countries such as Croatia are thinking of bringing back conscription. Denmark, a founding member of NATO, has introduced conscription for women for the first time and increased the period of military service from four months to a year as of this March. Although Germany scrapped conscription in 2011, there is discussion about bringing back some form of military service.

These examples show that the inability to attract and retain young people to the military is compounding the crisis that NATO is facing while continuing to present itself "as the greatest military alliance in history."

(With files from CBC, Ottawa Citizen, Politico. U.S. Department of Defense)

Events Related to Establishment of NATO

Division of Germany to Achieve Anglo-American Imperialist Aims

– Dougal MacDonald –

"History will be kind to us because we will write it."
-- Winston Churchill[1]

According to Anglo-American and anti-communist historians, the so-called Berlin Blockade and Berlin Airlift of 1948-49 marked the Soviet Union's initiation of the Cold War. But in March 1946, Winston Churchill had already started the Cold War by attacking the Soviet Union in his warmongering "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe."[2] Churchill was echoing his mentor, Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, who had stated a year earlier: "If the German people lay down their weapons, the Soviets, according to the agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin would occupy all of East and Southeast Europe along with the greater part of the Reich. An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered."[3]

Post World War II occupation of Germany
from 1945-49.

What then are the facts about the 1948-49 "Berlin Blockade" and "Berlin Airlift?" At the end of the Second World War, by the 1945 Potsdam Agreement, the four allies divided defeated Germany into four zones: Soviet, American, British and French. The city of Berlin was located in the Soviet Zone but all four countries' military governments were represented in its administration. A main provision agreed upon at Potsdam for the setting up of a new post-war German democratic state was economic unity among all zones. From the beginning, the U.S. imperialists pursued a policy of splitting rather than unifying Germany and of trying to isolate the Soviet Union, first merging the U.S. and British Zones into Bizonia and then into Trizonia by including the French Zone.

In 1948, the U.S. and the other Western Powers announced their intention to form a separate West Germany, which was created in May 1949. "East Germany" did not yet exist. The Soviet Union called for renewed four-power talks to resolve the issue, but the Western Powers ignored the call and instituted a separate Western currency reform, even though the Potsdam Agreement called for economic unity, which required unified currency. The goal of the Western introduction of the new deutsche mark currency into Berlin was to try to destabilize not only the economy of part of Berlin but also of the whole Soviet Zone of which Berlin was a part. It was warfare on the economic front. To prevent economic disruption of the people's lives, the Soviet Union instituted restrictions on traffic to and from Berlin, which the Western Powers labeled a "blockade."

The Western Powers responded to the justifiable restrictions by initiating the "Berlin Airlift" of food on June 24, 1948, after falsely alleging that the people of Berlin were starving and were "victims of a famine." For purposes of anti-Soviet propaganda, the completely unnecessary airlift delivered food to the supposedly blockaded people in the non-Soviet zones of Berlin until May 12, 1949. To show its good faith, the Soviet Union immediately offered to supply enough food for the entire Berlin population (rather than just the Soviet zone), which it began doing daily in July 1948. Meanwhile, the Western powers continued to pour out a stream of false allegations such as that the Soviets refused to negotiate, that the Soviets planned to overthrow the Berlin municipal government, that the Soviets wanted a new world war, and so on.

In August 1948, in Moscow, the four powers finally agreed on lifting the travel restrictions and introducing a uniform currency in Berlin but the U.S. imperialists quickly broke the agreement and stayed their course because such changes would interfere with their plans to partition Germany and create a separate West German state. The imperialists wanted to form an aggressive military bloc directed against the Soviet Union and the people's democracies and divert attention from questions of peace, disarmament and denazification. A divided Germany was the plan of the U.S. imperialists from the start, a policy that they later also carried out in Korea and Viet Nam, as the British had done when they partitioned India in 1947.

What happened in the past reveals that all the modern-day imperialist hosannas about Germany finally being reunified are complete rubbish because it was the imperialists who deliberately divided Germany in the first place.

The history of Berlin shows how historical falsification worked at that time by repeatedly presenting lies about the objective past and by suppressing -- including by force -- the presentation of the facts. Hitler once said, "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it." Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels was a master of the big lie technique. The Nazis constantly backed up their lies with force; Hitler's lie that Poland had attacked Germany was followed by the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, resulting in the deaths of more than three million Polish people. The U.S. imperialists learned well from Hitler and the Nazis. They inherited the big lie technique and used it during the Cold War to block the peoples of the world from having an outlook on the basis of which they could pursue their own movement to preserve the peace, instead of being divided into two camps according to which the danger of war was posed by one or the other, while the real problems of achieving peace remain unaddressed.

Notes

1. Said at the war-time conference of Allied leaders in Potsdam, 1945.

2. Churchill's infamous Iron Curtain Speech was made at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946.

3. From the article "Das Jahr 2000" in the newspaper Das Reich, February 25, 1945, pp. 1-2.

(Extracted from the article "First They Fake Berlin" by Dougal MacDonald, originally published in TML Daily, November 9, 2010)

Winston Churchill's Racist, Anti-Communist Speech in Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946

On March 5, 1946, former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill delivered what has become known as his "Iron Curtain" speech (officially titled "The Sinews of Peace") at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in the presence of U.S. President Harry Truman and an estimated audience of about 40,000. After some preliminary remarks, the speech revealed its main purpose which was to attack the Soviet Union. Churchill declared, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent." The phrase "iron curtain" became part of the popular lexicon and in subsequent years was used over and over by the British and U.S. to demonize the Soviet Union and attack its revolutionary leadership.

Churchill's speech is often said to have signalled the official beginning of the Cold War. However, both Britain and the U.S. had been conspiring and manoeuvring against the Soviet Union long before the end of the war, such as the refusal to open a second front, in the hopes that Nazi Germany would overwhelm the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. British aristocrats supported Hitler, while U.S. corporations funded domestic fascist groups while other monopolies secretly aided the Hitlerites throughout the entire war. However, the Anglo-American imperialists were faced with the reality that due to the heroism of the Red Army, Soviet Union and partisan forces in defeating Nazism, communism enjoyed great prestige after World War II. Thus, the Anglo-Americans needed a justification to smash the anti-fascist alliance. Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech was an important rationalization of the Anglo-American imperialists for attacking the anti-fascist united front, claiming that there now existed two worlds, one called "free" and centred around the U.S., the other called "enslaved," centred around the Soviet Union. Churchill, along with others, called for a grand Anglo-American strategy (including geo-political considerations and war aims) linked to notions of laws and values to combat this development. After the death of Stalin and rise of revisionism, the Soviet Union subsequently conciliated with the notion of two worlds and on this basis a bipolar world order was created.

In his speech at Fulton, Churchill called for Britain to form an even closer "special relationship" with the United States against the Soviet Union, the former wartime ally of the two countries. Britain was in decline with its former empire slipping away and its position as "leader of the Western world" being taken over by the United States, which had emerged from the war virtually unscathed and more powerful than ever before. In that vein, at several points in the speech, Churchill referred to "English-speaking" nations, saying that these were the most valuable, and therefore should decide and rule over the destiny of the world.

Churchill's speech proposed that opposing the Nazis, old and new, should no longer be the issue for Britain and the U.S. but that henceforth their united political and military opposition should be solely directed against Soviet Union, the very country which had contributed the most to defeating the Nazis and at by far the greatest cost. In fact, both countries were already welcoming with open arms former Nazis who they thought could prove useful in executing their post-war plans.

In addition to ranting about the "iron curtain," Churchill also spoke wildly of "communist parties or fifth columns" which he claimed constituted a "growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization." Drawing false parallels with the appeasement of Hitler prior to World War II, Churchill openly advocated for a military buildup against the Soviet Union by suggesting that in dealing with the Soviets there was "nothing which they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for military weakness."

Pravda Correspondent Interviews J.V. Stalin Concerning Churchill's Speech at Fulton, Missouri

In March 1946, a Pravda correspondent requested J.V. Stalin clarify a number of questions connected with Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech at Fulton, U.S.A. Below are J.V. Stalin's replies to the correspondent's questions, in which he rightly denounced the speech as "warmongering," and condemned Churchill's pious references to the "English-speaking peoples" as imperialist racism. Stalin defended Soviet friendship with eastern European states, which the Red Army had helped to liberate from Nazi rule, as a necessary safeguard against another invasion. He rightfully accused Churchill of trying to install anti-Soviet governments in eastern Europe.

Question: How do you appraise Mr. Churchill's latest speech in the United States of America?

Answer: I appraise it as a dangerous act, calculated to sow the seeds of dissension among the Allied States and impede their collaboration.

Question: Can it be considered that Mr. Churchill's speech is prejudicial to the cause of peace and security?

Answer: Yes, unquestionably. As a matter of fact, Mr. Churchill now takes the stand of the warmongers, and in this Mr. Churchill is not alone. He has friends not only in Britain but in the United States of America as well.

A point to be noted is that in this respect Mr. Churchill and his friends bear a striking resemblance to Hitler and his friends. Hitler began his work of unleashing war by proclaiming a race theory, declaring that only German-speaking people constituted a superior nation. Mr. Churchill sets out to unleash war with a race theory, asserting that only English-speaking nations are superior nations, who are called upon to decide the destinies of the entire world. The German race theory led Hitler and his friends to the conclusion that the Germans, as the only superior nation, should rule over other nations. The English race theory leads Mr. Churchill and his friends to the conclusion that the English-speaking nations, as the only superior nations, should rule over the rest of the nations of the world.

Actually, Mr. Churchill, and his friends in Britain and the United States, present to the non-English speaking nations something in the nature of an ultimatum: "Accept our rule voluntarily, and then all will be well; otherwise war is inevitable."

But the nations shed their blood in the course of five years' fierce war for the sake of the liberty and independence of their countries, and not in order to exchange the domination of the Hitlers for the domination of the Churchills. It is quite probable, accordingly, that the non-English-speaking nations, which constitute the vast majority of the population of the world, will not agree to submit to a new slavery.

It is Mr. Churchill's tragedy that, inveterate Tory that he is, he does not understand this simple and obvious truth.

There can be no doubt that Mr. Churchill's position is a war position, a call for war on the U.S.S.R. It is also clear that this position of Mr. Churchill's is incompatible with the Treaty of Alliance existing between Britain and the U.S.S.R. True, Mr. Churchill does say, in passing, in order to confuse his readers, that the term of the Anglo-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance and Collaboration might quite well be extended to 50 years. But how is such a statement on Mr. Churchill's part to be reconciled with his position of war on the U.S.S.R., with his preaching of War against the U.S.S.R.? Obviously, these things cannot be reconciled by any means whatever. And if Mr. Churchill, who calls for war on the Soviet Union, at the same time considers it possible to extend the term of the Anglo-Soviet Treaty to 50 years, that means that he regards this Treaty as a mere scrap of paper, which he only needs in order to disguise and camouflage his anti-Soviet position. For this reason, the false statements of Mr. Churchill's friends in Britain, regarding the extension of the term of the Anglo-Soviet treaty to 50 years or more, cannot be taken seriously. Extension of the Treaty term has no point if one of the parties violates the Treaty and converts it into a mere scrap of paper.

Question: How do you appraise the part of Mr. Churchill's speech in which he attacks the democratic systems in the European States bordering upon us, and criticises the good-neighbourly relations established between these States and the Soviet Union.

Answer: This part of Mr. Churchill's speech is compounded of elements of slander and elements of discourtesy and tactlessness. Mr. Churchill asserts that "Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia -- all these famous cities and the populations around them lie within the Soviet sphere and are all subject in one form or another not only to Soviet influence, but to a very high and increasing measure of control from Moscow." Mr. Churchill describes all this as "unlimited expansionist tendencies" on the part of the Soviet Union.

It needs no particular effort to show that in this Mr. Churchill grossly and unceremoniously slanders both Moscow, and the above-named States bordering on the U.S.S.R.

In the first place it is quite absurd to speak of exclusive control by the U.S.S.R. in Vienna and Berlin, where there are Allied Control Councils made up of the representatives of four States and where the U.S.S.R. has only one-quarter of the votes. It does happen that some people cannot help in engaging in slander. But still, there is a limit to everything.

Secondly, the following circumstance should not be forgotten. The Germans made their invasion of the U.S.S.R. through Finland, Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary. The Germans were able to make their invasion through these countries because, at the time, governments hostile to the Soviet Union existed in these countries. As a result of the German invasion the Soviet Union has lost irretrievably in the fighting against the Germans, and also through the German occupation and the deportation of Soviet citizens to German servitude, a total of about seven million people. In other words, the Soviet Union's loss of life has been several times greater than that of Britain and the United States of America put together. Possibly in some quarters an inclination is felt to forget about these colossal sacrifices of the Soviet people which secured the liberation of Europe from the Hitlerite yoke. But the Soviet Union cannot forget about them. And so what can there be surprising about the fact that the Soviet Union, anxious for its future safety, is trying to see to it that governments loyal in their attitude to the Soviet Union should exist in these countries? How can anyone, who has not taken leave of his wits, describe these peaceful aspirations of the Soviet Union as expansionist tendencies on the part of our State?

Mr. Churchill claims further that the "Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous, wrongful inroads on Germany."

Every word of this is a gross and insulting calumny. Outstanding men are at the helm in present democratic Poland. They have proved by their deeds that they are capable of upholding the interests and dignity of their country as their predecessors were not. What grounds has Mr. Churchill to assert that the leaders of present-day Poland can countenance in their country the domination of representatives of any foreign State whatever? Is it not because Mr. Churchill means to sow the seeds of dissension in the relations between Poland and the Soviet Union that he slanders "the Russians" here?

Mr. Churchill is displeased that Poland has faced about in her policy in the direction of friendship and alliance with the U.S.S.R. There was a time when elements of conflict and antagonism predominated in the relations between Poland and the U.S.S.R. This circumstance enabled statesmen like Mr. Churchill to play on these antagonisms, to get control over Poland on the pretext of protecting her from the Russians, to try to scare Russia with the spectre of war between her and Poland, and retain the position of arbiter for themselves. But that time is past and gone, for the enmity between Poland and Russia has given place to friendship between them, and Poland -- present-day democratic Poland -- does not choose to be a play-ball in foreign hands any longer. It seems to me that it is this fact that irritates Mr. Churchill and makes him indulge in discourteous, tactless sallies against Poland. Just imagine -- he is not being allowed to play his game at the expense of others!

As to Mr. Churchill's attack upon the Soviet Union in connection with the extension of Poland's Western frontier to include Polish territories which the Germans had seized in the past -- here it seems to me he is plainly cheating. As is known, the decision on the Western frontier of Poland was adopted at the Berlin Three-Power Conference on the basis of Poland's demands. The Soviet Union has repeatedly stated that it considers Poland's demands to be proper and just. It is quite probable that Mr. Churchill is displeased with this decision. But why does Mr. Churchill, while sparing no shots against the Russian position in this matter, conceal from his readers the fact that this decision was passed at the Berlin Conference by unanimous vote -- that it was not only the Russians, but the British and Americans as well, that voted for the decision? Why did Mr. Churchill think it necessary to mislead the public?

Further, Mr. Churchill asserts that the Communist Parties, which were previously very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to prominence and power far beyond their numbers and seek everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments prevail in nearly every case, and "thus far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy."

As is known, the Government of the State in Britain at the present time is in the hands of one party, the Labour Party, and the opposition parties are deprived of the right to participate in the Government of Britain. That Mr. Churchill calls true democracy. Poland, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Hungary are administered by blocs of several parties -- from four to six parties -- and the opposition, if it is more or less loyal, is secured the right of participation in the Government. That Mr. Churchill describes as totalitarianism, tyranny and police rule. Why? On what grounds? Don't expect a reply from Mr. Churchill. Mr. Churchill does not understand in what a ridiculous position he puts himself by his outcry about "totalitarianism, tyranny and police rule."

Mr. Churchill would like Poland to be administered by Sosnkowski and Anders, Yugoslavia by Mikhailovich and Pavelich, Rumania by Prince Stirbey and Radescu, Hungary and Austria by some King of the House of Hapsburg, and so on. Mr. Churchill wants to assure us that these gentlemen from the Fascist backyard can ensure true democracy.

Such is the "democracy" of Mr. Churchill.

Mr. Churchill comes somewhere near the truth when he speaks of the increasing influence of the Communist Parties in Eastern Europe. It must be remarked, however, that he is not quite accurate. The influence of the Communist Parties has grown not only in Eastern Europe, but in nearly all the countries of Europe which were previously under Fascist rule -- Italy, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Finland -- or which experienced German, Italian or Hungarian occupation -- France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, the Soviet Union and so on.

The increased influence of the Communists cannot be considered fortuitous. It is a perfectly logical thing. The influence of the Communists has grown because, in the years of the rule of Fascism in Europe, the Communists showed themselves trusty, fearless, self-sacrificing fighters against the Fascist regime for the liberty of the peoples. Mr. Churchill in his speeches sometimes recalls the plain people from little homes, slapping them patronisingly on the back and parading as their friend. But these people are not so simple as may at first sight appear. These plain people have views of their own, a policy of their own, and they know how to stand up for themselves. It was they, the millions of these plain people, that defeated Mr. Churchill and his party in Britain by casting their votes for the Labourites. It was they, the millions of these "plain people," who isolated the reactionaries and advocates of collaboration with Fascism in Europe, and gave their preference to the Left democratic parties. It was they, the millions of these "plain people," who after testing the Communists in the fires of struggle and resistance to Fascism, came to the conclusion that the Communists were fully deserving of the people's confidence. That was how the influence of the Communists grew in Europe.

Of course Mr. Churchill does not like this course of development and he sounds the alarm and appeals to force. But neither did he like the birth of the Soviet regime in Russia after the First World War. At that time, too, he sounded the alarm and organised an armed campaign of 14 States against Russia setting himself the goal of turning back the wheel of history. But history proved stronger than the Churchill intervention, and Mr. Churchill's quixotry led to his unmitigated defeat at that time. I don't know whether Mr. Churchill and his friends will succeed in organising a new armed campaign against Eastern Europe after the Second World War; but if they do succeed -- which is not very probable because millions of plain people stand guard over the cause of peace -- it may confidently be said that they will be thrashed, just as they were thrashed once before, 26 years ago.

Geopolitics of Atlanticism

– Tony Seed –

Winston Churchill and U.S. President Truman arrive at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri,
March 5, 1946, where Churchill would deliver his warmongering "Iron Curtain" speech.

Many U.S. presidents argue that their leadership be accepted on the basis that they alone can establish an international order that could bring about peace and stability. Prior to the advent of the doctrine which claims that the U.S. is the one indispensable nation to which all must submit, that order has traditionally been equated with the interests and demands of an "international community." To their chagrin, the peoples of the world are witness to the genocide of the Palestinian people being carried out by the U.S./Israel and their appeasers including Canada and are opposed to the conception of "the interests and demands of the international community" this represents.

The pretense of representing "the international community" is that there is adherence to the post-World War II racist conception of the Anglo-American imperialists that the "English-speaking peoples" should decide and rule over the destiny of the world. For them the "international community" is equated with the "English-speaking peoples" (USA, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) and includes whoever they pragmatically deem to be part of it. This is what Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly push today when they present themselves on behalf of a self-proclaimed "international community" dictating who are the representatives of the people of Haiti and so too, of the Palestinians and other countries. The aim of this racist world view is to divert attention from the essence of the matter: the failure to uphold the right of nations to decide themselves their internal affairs without foreign interference which is enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.

The following article which elaborates the geopolitics of Atlanticism -- NATO's founding values and ideology -- was written by Tony Seed and published by TML Weekly Information Project in Vol. 49 No. 12 Supplement, April 6, 2019. Tony Seed writes:

The most significant document elaborating the racist view of the superiority of the "English-speaking world" and expressing the aims and mandate for which NATO was created was the so-called Iron Curtain speech delivered by Winston Churchill on March 5, 1946. This speech was delivered barely six months after V-J (Victory over Japan) Day, after his Tory Party was crushed in the election in England and the crisis in which the British Empire was mired was deepening. Winston Churchill rediscovered both the Atlanticist race doctrine of "manifest destiny" proclaimed by Theodore Roosevelt at the turn of the century and the Hitlerite "menace of Bolshevism."

Churchill's Iron Curtain speech which was the cause of so much uproar was delivered at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, where he went ostensibly to receive an honorary degree. The little-known college was located approximately 240 kilometres from the hometown of President Truman who travelled there to introduce Churchill. Truman's presence was necessary because without him, the show could not be staged. He was conspicuously present at the time of its delivery not only to introduce Churchill to the audience but to underline its import and assure saturation media coverage.

There is no doubt that Truman and Churchill had agreed on the contents of the speech and had weighed its consequences. "In the light of Truman's strongly hardened determination to quit 'babying' the Soviets, he was probably the originator" of the speech, assesses the American historian D.F. Fleming. As is known, British Prime Minister Attlee, Foreign Minister Bevin, and also Truman and U.S. Secretary of State Byrnes knew that this speech was to be made and had given their approval. Lester Pearson also read a draft and boasted that he was proud to have contributed a line.[1] In other words, the "greatness" of Churchill was to be used to justify any and every kind of infamy and aggression. All these facts prove that Churchill did not only express his personal views, but promulgated the anti-Soviet program of the ruling elite in Britain, the United States of America and Canada.

In Britain, Churchill could not have publicly announced the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Such a speech could have ended very embarrassingly for him at that time. The British people were militant supporters of the Soviet Union and their leader J.V. Stalin who led the brilliant victory over the Nazi hordes who invaded the Soviet Union. They had suffered great losses during the war and had just drummed Churchill and his party out of office in the 1945 General Election. Their disagreement with the former government's foreign policy line which Churchill was to now formulate in the Fulton speech would have been unmistakable. Taking into consideration the state of affairs in Britain, the leaders of the social democratic Labour government did not dare express official solidarity with Churchill; they were to do that a few years later.

It was another matter in the U.S. where the government openly preached Churchill's anti-Soviet ideas. Truman's presence at Fulton underlined the importance attached by the U.S. ruling elite to this speech. Furthermore, the United States was obliged, by virtue of its position in the imperialist world, to play the leading role in carrying out Churchill's proposed plan.

The Soviet Union, having paid with colossal human and material losses for victory over fascism, was solely concerned to restore what had been destroyed by the aggressors, to progress further along the road of socialist construction and to vigorously defend the cause of humanity for liberation and peace, against war. Yet to the great astonishment of his audience, the guest speaker announced that they were in direct and immediate danger of another world war and tyranny, and that the cause of this threat was the Soviet Union and the international communist movement.

Churchill declared that the main purpose of his speech was to propose the creation of a "fraternal association of English-speaking peoples." He said this meant "a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States. Fraternal association requires not only the growing friendship between our two vast but kindred systems of society, but the continuance of the intimate relationships between our military advisers, leading to common study of potential danger, the similarity of weapons and manuals of instruction and to the interchange of officers and cadets at technical colleges. It should carry with it the continuance of the present facilities for mutual security by the joint use of all Naval and Air Force bases in possession of either country all over the world.

"This would perhaps double the mobility of the American navy and air force. It would greatly expand that of the British Empire's Forces and it might well lead, if and as the world calms down, to important financial savings [...] Eventually there may come [...] the principle of common citizenship, but that we may be content to leave to destiny, whose outstretched arm so many of us can already clearly see."

Churchill tried to put the wind behind the sails of the ruling elite in the U.S., Britain and other countries:

"Beware, I say: time may be short. Do not let us take the course of letting events drift along till it is too late."

Who was to be the target of the Anglo-American military alliance? Churchill made his meaning absolutely clear. He said it was against "the growing challenge to Christian civilization" and war against "the menace of Bolshevism," the developing socialist revolution. He demanded an Anglo-American preponderance of power against the Soviet Union, with reference to Eastern Europe. He made explicit the division of Europe and the world into two spheres of influence, one led by the U.S., the other by the USSR, i.e., two camps, formally declaring the Cold War and enunciating what would be the original mandate of NATO, launching the idea of a military bloc of nations with common ideals, allegedly under the auspices of the United Nations. Churchill stated:

"Courts and magistrates cannot function without sheriffs and constables. The United Nations Organization must immediately begin to be equipped with an international armed force. [...] They would wear the uniform of their own countries with different badges. They would not be required to act against their own nation but in other respects they would be directed by the world organization. [...] I wished to see this done after the First World War and trust it may be done forthwith."

Churchill heralded on the one hand the "special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States" and on the other hand declared cold war on the Soviet Union. He proclaimed Europe and the Anglo-American world as a victim:

"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in the Soviet sphere and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and increasing measure of control from Moscow [...]

"I do not believe that...Russia desires war [but] the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and their doctrines. [...]"[2]

This was the first mention of the phrase "special relationship" but not the first of the "iron curtain" which was to become popular with Cold War propagandists. The 1948 edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations states: "According to the London Times, the expression 'iron curtain' was coined by von Krosigk, Hitler's Minister of Finance, and was used by Goebbels, in his propaganda for some years before Mr. Churchill adopted it." In spite of this, British communist R. Palme Dutt wrote at the time, "[T]his formula is universally stated to have been coined by the genius of Sir Winston Churchill."[3]

Churchill's notion of an iron curtain was the salvo to justify every kind of brutality in order to keep the peoples and nations enslaved. It served as a reminder that what the Anglo-American chauvinists feared the most was a world in which the peoples were all liberated. Instead of having one world united against fascism and reaction, for peace, freedom, independence and democracy, they divided humanity by championing the anti-democratic and imperialist forces and creating two camps.

Condemning the democratic transformations in the countries of Eastern Europe, Churchill indicated what he had in mind for these countries. "Athens alone," he said, "with its immortal glories, is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation." But Athens was a symbol of the shame with which Churchill covered himself in December 1944 when he ordered his troops and local Nazi collaborators to openly fire on unarmed Greeks demonstrating in support of the Greek partisans, who were Britain's allies in the war, because of the influence of the Communist Party in the resistance movement.

Churchill recommended the use of force against the USSR, and soon -- while the USA had the atomic bomb and the Soviet Union had not yet developed it. Churchill made it absolutely clear that he meant the application of military force against the USSR. "From what I have seen from our Russian friends and allies during the war," he said, "I am convinced there is nothing they admire so much as strength." He had proposed achieving in 1946 "a good understanding on all points with Russia." This meant that if the Soviet Union did not capitulate when threatened with the use of force, then it would be essential to start a preventive war against it.

Churchill was no longer content with the traditional British principle of a balance of power when Britain had carried out its policy on the continent of Europe by playing one country off against another. "The old doctrine of a balance of power is unsound," he said. "We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins offering temptations to a trial of strength." On behalf of Truman, he presented a new policy for the Anglo-American imperialists which was subsequently to become known as the "position of strength" or "peace through strength" policy.

The "good understanding on all points with Russia" which Churchill hoped for was to be "supported by the whole strength of the English-speaking world and all its connections." In this way, the idea was expressed of setting up Anglo-American world domination. There was nothing new about this. The "cooperation and fraternity of the English-speaking peoples committed to the ideals of democracy and liberty had long been Winston Churchill's great interest, and was his greatest hope for the future of mankind." His literary project, begun in the 1930s, was the four-volume A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Churchill was known to have been harbouring it throughout World War II.[4]

Following the collapse of the Maginot Line and the humiliation of "Dunkirk," Churchill then made his "grand gesture" to France proposing common citizenship. ("Thank God for the French Army," Churchill had said, time and again.) Churchill advocated the subjection of France to England under the auspices of the United States and held that "the principle of common citizenship may arise later" for the USA and England.[5]

Churchill believed that if Britain and the USA could suppress the revolutionary movements and subject the Soviet Union to their will, they would be able to ensure domination over the world for the next one hundred years. In his Fulton speech he said:

"If the population of the English-speaking Commonwealths be added to that of the United States, with all that such co-operation implies in the air, on the sea, and in science and industry, and in moral force, there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. [... I]f all British moral and material forces and convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association, the highroads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come."

With Napoleonic hubris, Churchill announced that he intended to define the task facing humanity and explain how it should be accomplished. Characteristically he pointed out that in the latter part of the 1930s, when a second world war was imminent, he alone had offered the right advice on how it should be averted, but his efforts had failed because those in power at the time had proved incapable of understanding the full significance of his suggestions. This was more than his habitual self-promotion and aggrandizement. He was also implying that the counsel he was giving to humanity on this occasion was as well-founded and justified as his attitude on the eve of the Second World War.

The thrust of Churchill's Fulton speech was as follows: The Soviet Union was the main threat to the security and freedom of all other nations and therefore humanity must unite under Anglo-American leadership and avert this threat by use of force. Churchill aimed to stir up the whole world against the Soviet Union. All this was being said less than a year after the Soviet Union, at the cost of appalling sacrifices and sufferings, had ensured the defeat of fascism and had helped bring freedom to the enslaved peoples; after Britain, thanks to the sacrifices, had been saved from the threat of imminent destruction; and at the time when, as Anglo-American military experts believed, Britain and the USA would have been still fighting a war with Japan in the Far East if the Soviet Union had not stepped in on the side of the Allies, thereby ensuring its swift and early conclusion. The truth is now known about Churchill's development of "Operation Unthinkable" -- a plan for war against the Soviet Union that was to have begun on July 1, 1945 with 112-113 divisions, including a dozen Wehrmacht divisions that were kept in readiness in Schleswig-Holstein and southern Denmark until the spring of 1946.[6] The plan assumed a surprise attack by as many as 47 British and American divisions in the area of Dresden, in the middle of Soviet lines.

Coursing through Churchill's speech was a hatred for the peoples of the Soviet Union, whose crime was that they had built their own life in accordance with their own desires and ways of thinking, and not as he would have approved. Churchill had waged war on the October Revolution in Russia by building the interventionist block of the 14 nations including the U.S. and Canada during 1918, 1919 and 1920 which was thrashed by the Red Army and sent packing. He was to declare: "The failure to strangle Bolshevism at its birth and to bring Russia, then prostrate, by one means or another into the general democratic system, lies heavy upon us today."[7] Then throughout the twenties he had preached the menace of the "red revolution," never losing an opportunity to refer to the Bolshevik leaders as "murderers and ministers of hell."

Besides taking up the Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy theories of the Hitlerites, Churchill avidly promoted national chauvinism, the racial division of the peoples into superior and inferior tiers to sow discord and line them up behind the aims of the Anglo-American imperialists and reactionary ruling classes. Racism, anti-communism and anti-worker propaganda are the three components of fascist ideology. This is what Hitler pushed and acted on under the banner of national socialism; he began to set war loose by announcing his racial theory, declaring that only those speaking the German language represented a really valuable nation.

Soviet cartoon showing Churchill delivering his infamous 1946 speech, holding two flags that read "An Iron Curtain over Europe!" and"Anglo-Saxons Must Rule the World!" In the background are Hitler and Goebbels.

The essence of the policy of the ruling circles of Britain and France in that period was disclosed by Joseph Stalin in an interview with Pravda. Exposing the true meaning of this summons, Stalin pointed out:

"Mr. Churchill has, in point of fact, taken up the position of war instigator. And Mr. Churchill is not alone in this -- he has friends not only in Britain, but in the United States of America as well." Stalin went on to note that Churchill's Fulton speech was strikingly reminiscent of Hitler:

"Hitler went about the business of unleashing a war by promulgating a racist theory, announcing that the German-speaking peoples were the master race. Mr. Churchill likewise begins the business of unleashing a war with a racist theory, claiming that the English-speaking nations are the master race called upon to fulfill the destinies of the whole world.... The British race theory leads Mr. Churchill and his friends to the conclusion that the English-speaking nations, as the master race, must dominate the other nations of the world. In point of fact, Mr. Churchill and his friends in Britain and the U.S. are offering the non-English-speaking nations something in the nature of an ultimatum: recognize our domination voluntarily and then everything will be settled -- otherwise war is inevitable.... There can be no doubt that Mr. Churchill's aim is war, a call to war with the USSR."[8]

Reaction to Churchill's Speech

The Churchill-Truman speech was greeted with indignation and emphatic condemnation in the democratic circles of various countries, including the United States of America, Great Britain and France. Churchill's speech caused alarm. Many realized it was a call to unleash another world war. Over 100 Labour MPs in the British Parliament condemned Churchill's address. The reaction from the Canadian government was obsequious. His cheerleader Lester Pearson admitted in an official dispatch: "The popular and press reaction to Mr. Churchill's Westminster College speech is about what I expected, mixed, but with the preponderance of opinion critical."

The influential columnist Walter Lippmann, Pearson said, "felt that an alliance with the United Kingdom and the Dominions was one thing; an alliance with the British Empire quite another. This is the traditional and deeply rooted fear of being linked with 'Imperialism'; a fear which is increased at this time as the British Imperial system faces a post-war upsurge of native nationalism which may be expected to express itself violently. Underwriting the United Kingdom is one thing; underwriting Malaya, Burma and Hong Kong something else, though the two can hardly be separated. This is perplexing to the 'Lippmann' school."[9]

Churchill's attack on Stalin for the so-called "division of Europe" legitimized the perfidious violation of all the important Anglo-American-Soviet agreements then underway -- of Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam. According to Jacob Heilbrunn, writing for the Los Angeles Times in 2005, the case was developed by Joseph McCarthy and others of his ilk against "what [they] viewed as a consistent pattern of 'appeasement' in the Democratic Party. In parallel, the Trotskyite 'left' contended that Stalin 'sold out' the French resistance, the Greek communists and even the Palestinians. The right contended that Roosevelt 'sold out' Eastern Europe at the Yalta conference by promising the Soviets an unchallenged sphere of influence in the region."[10]

Heilbrunn adds that "One element of the right-wing mythology developed in those years was that Alger Hiss, who served during the war as an assistant to Secretary of State Edward Stettinius Jr. -- and who was charged in the years that followed with being a Soviet spy and was convicted of perjury -- was instrumental in getting Roosevelt to collude with Stalin against Churchill. It was none other than Joseph McCarthy who declared in February 1950 that 'if time permitted, it might be well to go into detail about the fact that Hiss was Roosevelt's chief advisor at Yalta when Roosevelt was admittedly in ill health and tired physically and mentally.' In later decades, conservatives such as Ronald Reagan would denounce any negotiations with the Soviet Union as portending a new 'Yalta.' Read the text of the Yalta Protocol for yourself. It nowhere formally speaks of the 'division' either of the continent, of any region, or of any country. Nor is there any informal record. The joint powers agreed on a division of one city, Berlin, under a unified command. The Anglo-American historians themselves have established the canard of the 'division of Europe'; it was the U.S. who unilaterally extended the division of Berlin to the unilateral proclamation of West Germany in contravention to the Potsdam Agreement."[11]

During his visit to the United States in May of 1943, Churchill had propounded the idea of "common citizenship" between the Anglo-Saxon countries and suggested that the structure of their military alliance be kept after the war and that the two countries collaborate closely on the chief questions of foreign policy. He then revealed the blackness of his soul, maintaining in his exhortation that only "English-speaking" nations are fully valuable nations, calling on them to decide the destiny of the world. Churchill attributed to them "constancy of mind, persistency of purpose and the grand simplicity of decision." Here is the notion of the moral superiority of Anglo-American values, today being raised once again to fever-pitch, in the name of "Euro-Atlanticism," "trans-Atlantic values" and "the international community" -- the same ones who dropped humanitarian bombs on Afghanistan, Libya, Syria. Here is replicated the ideology of Anglo-Saxon superiority proclaimed as the justification for the new American imperialist power which used the Spanish-American War of 1898 to devour the Americas and the Philippines -- the "civilizing mission" of "white man's burden." The "greatness" of the "English-speaking" nations advocates the division of the world between superior and inferior peoples, between superior and inferior states.

Churchill's call was aimed not only at the "English-speaking peoples" but also constituted a civil war incitement to all the bourgeois nationalist and chauvinist forces in Central and Eastern Europe which had been gathered during World War Two under Anglo-American tutelage -- "all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie" -- where the national question had become one of the most profound questions taken up for solution in the form of the new people's democracies. These émigré forces had fled in 1945 to Munich occupied by the Third American Army where they were being reformed into clandestine political and terrorist forces.

Atlanticism

"I am for the world nation," says the racist of the Anglo-Saxon doctrine, "but precisely my nation is the world nation." On the basis of this outlook, all other nations must adapt themselves to this Anglo-American nation, dissolve themselves in it, lose their national identity, and forget about their national traditions, philosophy and thought material. One does not look at what each people have accomplished as a starting point, namely that "The philosophy and thought material of each people poses problems which are of their own, brings forth those personalities who will tackle these problems and who knows, there is no reason it might not go beyond the previous developments on the world scale."[12]

The cosmopolitan theory and geopolitics of Atlanticism forms one of the main underpinnings for NATO and the global drive for Anglo-American supremacy -- the Anglosphere -- declaring the cultural unity and community of interests of all peoples of the Atlantic lake, about "world culture" (meaning Anglo-American and Euro-culture), and the reciprocal influence and penetration of cultures. It was and is a Eurocentric, racist doctrine.

"Atlanticism" signifies the "spiritual unity" of "the North Atlantic community," i.e., states straddling the Atlantic Ocean. "Atlantic Union" is essentially based on an Anglo-Saxon union. It is a successive strategy that takes different political forms of Atlantic unity according to the different offensive periods of American imperialism. At its heart is Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine.[13]

The proclamation of the Truman Doctrine in 1947 and the Marshall Plan in 1948 meant that the core of the foreign policy plan had been accepted as U.S. state policy. As a result of efforts by the U.S., Britain and Canada, NATO was set up as an aggressive military-political bloc in 1949. This was the Fulton programme in action.

Canadians should be clear that this is what the Government of Canada means when it talks about the "values" Canada espouses as justification for its participation in NATO. As mentioned, Lester Pearson personally took credit for contributing to Churchill's speech and Canada aggressively promoted the division of Germany, Europe and all humanity. The post-war records of the Department of External Affairs with all their prattle about their new "non-colonial" "universalism" and "internationalism" were imbued with the 19th century prejudices of empire-building. On March 19, 1946, George Ritchie, first secretary in the Department of External Affairs and later Canadian Ambassador to West Germany, the United Nations and the United States, wrote frankly that this is "a tussle of power politics" and Canada is "part of an Anglo-Saxon team."[14]

During World War II, Canadians and other peoples of the world shed their blood in the course of five years' fierce war for the sake of the democracy, freedom and independence, and not in order to exchange the domination of the Hitlers for the domination of the Churchills. They did not agree with nor did they have a say in the creation of NATO as a war bloc four years later. Today the vast majority of the population of the world do not agree to submit to a new slavery in the name of an "international community" championed by the Trudeaus and Trumps. They will have their say on the basis of defending the rights of all nations to decide their own affairs without foreign interference.

Notes

1. Pearson's comments on Churchill's speech characteristically reveal the Liberal duplicity and how, even in 1946, the Canadian government was intriguing to form a new aggressive military bloc:

"Finally, Mr. Churchill's proposals have been vigorously attacked by those who see in a strong and universal -- or as nearly universal as possible -- United Nations Organization the only hope for peace. They feel, and with some reason, that an Anglo-American military alliance might weaken and eventually destroy the United Nations Organization. Mr. Churchill, of course, attempted to combat these fears by his 'In My Father's House are Many Mansions' argument. But he has not been successful. He might have been more successful if he had broadened the basis of his 'fraternal association' proposals to include all peace-loving states, who might wish to strengthen their defence relationships within the United Nations Organization. From this point of view, and in my opinion from others, also, it would have been better if Mr. Churchill had made a plea for strengthening the United Nations Organization and for the alteration of the Charter, if necessary, to make such strengthening possible. He then would have been on much stronger ground in arguing that, if one state, or more than one, blocked such a strengthening, a special relationship between the others would be justified. However, it is pretty clear that Mr. Churchill did not have this in mind in his speech. He was thinking of an intimate military association of the English-speaking people alone.

"In the draft of the speech which I read, there was a specific reference to the advisability of continuing the Combined Chiefs of staff. I mentioned at the time to Lord Halifax that I thought this would be unwelcome even to those United States and British service authorities who were hoping most for such a continuance, but thought that the best chance of bringing it about was not to call attention to the matter, but to let the wartime arrangements quietly go on. Lord Halifax agreed and the sentence in question was later amended. However, as amended, it was clear enough to what it referred; clear enough already to cause a discussion which may prejudice these arrangements by bringing them into the open. The attached article by Arthur Krock in the New York Times is interesting in this connection.

"You may also have noticed that a question was asked President Truman at last Thursday's Press Conference on this point. Mr. Truman explained that the Combined Chiefs of Staff were still functioning because peace had not yet been formally made, but that this situation would not, he hoped, last much longer. This part of Mr. Churchill's remarks, therefore, may have hindered rather than helped the cause he hoped to promote; the closest possible association of the armed services of the two countries. [Emphasis added.]

[...]

"If no real success is achieved at such a conference (of the Big Three), then the United States and the United Kingdom should convert the United Nations into a really effective agent to preserve the peace and prevent aggression. This means revising it radically. If the Russians veto such a revision, agreed on by others, a new organization must be created which, as the guardian of the peace for all nations, and not merely the English speaking ones, can function without the Russians and, as a last resort, against them." (Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State for External Affairs, DESPATCH 511, Washington, March 11th, 1946.)

At the same time, dispatches from the Canadian Ambassador to the USSR, Hume Wrong, acknowledged that the Soviet Union was not at all preparing for war.

2. Cited in Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Co., 1977), pp. 175-6.

3. The "iron curtain" formula came to be used millions of times by anti-communists. "This formula," wrote British communist R. Palme Dutt, "... in fact was first used in this sense... by Josef Goebells in an editorial published in Das Reich on February 25, 1945....[It] continues to be used on every side without recognition of its Nazi origin. If a royalty had to be paid for its use each time by Western publicists and politicians to the original author, the shade of Goebbels would now be the wealthiest shade in Hades." In that article Goebbels wrote:

"If the German people lay down their weapons, the Soviets, according to the agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, would occupy all of East and Southeast Europe along with the greater part of the Reich. An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered."

The "Nazi megaphone" himself may have gotten the term from the Wehrmacht propaganda publication Signal which in 1943 published an article by Randall Bytwerk entitled "Behind the Iron Curtain" who stated:

"He who has listened in on the interrogation of a Soviet prisoner of war knows that once the dam is broken, a flood of words begins as he tries to make clear what he experienced behind the mysterious iron curtain, which more than ever separates the world from the Soviet Union."

4. In a speech on April 27, 1941 following Nazi Germany's invasion of Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France, ending the so-called "phony war," Churchill had quoted poet Arthur Hugh Clough:

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!

5. British newspaper The Times wrote on May 8, 1945: "Unable to stem the German rush to the coast, [the French General] Weygand reformed his armies behind the Somme and the Aisne and a small British Expeditionary Force was landed in their support. It was too late, and on June 14 the Germans entered Paris, which had been declared an open city. From Bordeaux, whither it had withdrawn, the French Cabinet requested the British Government to release it from its obligation not to make a separate peace. To this the British Government -- the Coalition Ministry which Mr. Churchill had formed a month before -- was prepared to consent if the French fleet first sailed to safety in British ports.

"But the British proposal went farther.

"It offered the union of the two States in a common citizenship if France would fight on. The French Cabinet rejected this proposal, M. Reynaud, who had favoured it, resigned, and the octogenarian Pétain took his place to become the central figure in the most humiliating episode in French history." ("The Long Road To Victory; A Historical Narrative and a Chronological Register Of The Events Of The War In Europe And Africa 1939-1945," The Times, May 8, 1945.)

6. "'Operation Unthinkable' Churchill's Planned Invasion of the Soviet Union," July 1945, Yuriy Rubtsov, Strategic Culture Foundation, May 25, 2015.

7. Speech delivered by Churchill March 31, 1949 at Mid-Century Convocation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

8. J.V. Stalin, Interview with Pravda Correspondent Concerning Mr. Winston Churchill's Speech at Fulton, March, 1946, Source: J.V. Stalin on Post-War International Relations, Soviet News, 1947.

9. Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State for External Affairs, DESPATCH 511, Washington, March 11th, 1946.

10. "Once Again, the Big Yalta Lie," Jacob Heilbrunn, Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2005.

11. Ibid.

12. "A Look at Indian Philosophy -- The Zero Period," Discussion, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1992.

13. During World War II journalist Walter Lippmann, in his 1944 book U.S. War Aims (a sequel to his earlier United States Foreign Policy), sketched a picture of cultural and historical affinities on both sides of the Atlantic -- what he described as an "Atlantic civilization," which came to be picked up by others.

Charles Cogan, Senior Research Associate at the Kennedy School at Harvard University wrote of Lippmann's influence in a 2009 article entitled "American and European Foreign Relations":

"Little by little, by way of filling a spiritual void, and at the same time of providing a strategic and moral raison d'être for a new engagement of the United States in Europe, a number of American and European intellectuals seemed to take up the theme of the influential journalist Walter Lippmann." (International Relations, Volume 1, UNESCO/EOLSS, 2009)

Cogan points out that In the post-war period, a joint study was published on the same theme, by a Frenchman, Jacques Godechot, and an American, Robert Palmer, with the title of The Problem of the Atlantic. Cogan cites the authors as follows:

"Lippmann was clearly the first to use the expression 'Atlantic Community.' For him the Atlantic Community was a political and economic grouping, established little by little by all the great powers bordering the ocean, strengthened by the 'Atlantic Charter,' and destined to develop in the future, thanks to the good neighbor principle and to the organization of increasingly active economic exchanges."

In U.S. War Aims and other writings, Lippmann proposed a series of "orbits" that would coexist peacefully after the war: an Atlantic orbit, a Soviet orbit, and an eventual Chinese orbit. Lippmann's view, according to his biographer Ronald Steel was that "the 'primary aim' of American responsibility was the basin of the Atlantic on both sides, and the Pacific islands -- in other words, the Atlantic community plus a 'bluewater' strategy of naval bases and roaming fleets. Outside these regions there should be no permanent military or political commitments."

The term "Atlantic" had an unwelcome ring to French ears. France's difficulty with this emphasis on Atlantic affinities, linking the Old World with the New, was that the Atlantic, as Jacques Godechot and Robert Palmer put it, had been dominated by England from the eighteenth century onwards and that at the end of the nineteenth century this hegemony had been replaced by a combined American, British, and Canadian one. Thus, the "Atlantic" world was a world in which France could never enjoy first place.

14. Ritchie was the scion of a prominent Loyalist family that fled to Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley following the American Revolution with enslaved Africans as personal chattel.

Operation Unthinkable -- Churchill's Planned Invasion of the Soviet Union, July 1945

– Yuriy Rubtsov –

In late May 1945, Josef Stalin ordered Marshall Georgy Zhukov to leave Germany and come to Moscow. He was concerned over the actions of British allies. Stalin said the Soviet forces disarmed Germans and sent them to prisoners' camps while the British did not. Instead they cooperated with German troops and let them maintain combat capability. Stalin believed that there were plans to use them later. He emphasized that it was an outright violation of the inter-governmental agreements that said the forces surrendered were to be immediately disbanded. The Soviet intelligence got the text of a secret telegram sent by Winston Churchill to Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, the commander of British forces. It instructed to collect the weapons and keep them in readiness to give back to Germans in case the Soviet offensive continued.

According to the instructions received from Stalin, Zhukov harshly condemned these activities when speaking at the Allied Control Council (the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France). He said world history knew few examples of such treachery and refusal to observe the commitments on the part of nations that had an allied status. Montgomery denied the accusation. A few years later he admitted that he received such an instruction and carried it out. He had to comply with the order as a soldier.

A fierce battle was raging in the vicinity of Berlin. At this time, Winston Churchill said that the Soviet Russia had become a deadly threat to the free world. The British Prime Minister wanted a new front created in the east to stop the Soviet offensive as soon as possible. Churchill was overwhelmed by the feeling that with Nazi Germany defeated a new threat emerged posed by the Soviet Union.

Report by Joint Planning Staff on Operation Unthinkable, May 22, 1945.

That's why London wanted Berlin to be taken by Anglo-American forces. Churchill also wanted Americans to liberate Czechoslovakia and Prague with Austria controlled by all allies on equal terms.

Not later than April 1945 Churchill instructed the British Armed Forces' Joint Planning Staff to draw up Operation Unthinkable, a code name of two related plans of a conflict between the Western allies and the Soviet Union. The generals were asked to devise means to "impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire." The hypothetical date for the start of the Allied invasion of Soviet-held Europe was scheduled for July 1, 1945. In the final days of the war against the Hitler's Germany London started preparations to strike the Soviet Union from behind.

The plan envisioned unleashing a total war to occupy the parts of the Soviet Union which had a crucial significance for its war effort and deliver a decisive blow to the Soviet armed forces leaving the USSR unable to continue fighting.

The plan included the possibility of Soviet forces retreating deep into its territory according to the tactics used in previous wars. The plan was taken by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee as militarily unfeasible due to a three-to-one superiority of Soviet land forces in Europe and the Middle East, where the conflict was projected to take place. German units were needed to balance the correlation of forces. That's why Churchill wanted them to remain combat capable.

The War Cabinet stated: "The Russian Army has developed a capable and experienced High Command. The army is exceedingly tough, lives and moves on a lighter scale of maintenance than any Western army, and employs bold tactics based largely on disregard for losses in attaining its objective. Equipment has improved rapidly throughout the war and is now good. Enough is known of its development to say that it is certainly not inferior to that of the great powers. The facility the Russians have shown in the development and improvement of existing weapons and equipment and in their mass production has been very striking. There are known instances of the Germans copying basic features of Russian armament." The British planners came to pessimistic conclusions. They said any attack would be "hazardous" and that the campaign would be "long and costly". The report actually stated: "If we are to embark on war with Russia, we must be prepared to be committed to a total war, which would be both long and costly." The numerical superiority of Soviet ground forces left little chance for success. The assessment, signed by the Chief of Army Staff on June 9, 1945, concluded: "It would be beyond our power to win a quick but limited success and we would be committed to a protracted war against heavy odds. These odds, moreover, would become fanciful if the Americans grew weary and indifferent and began to be drawn away by the magnet of the Pacific war."

The Prime Minister received a draft copy of the plan on June 8th. Annoyed as he was, Churchill could not do much about it as the supremacy of the Red Army was evident. Even with a nuclear bomb in the inventory of US military, Harry Truman, the new American President, had to take it into account.

Meeting Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, President Truman took the bull by the horns. He made a thinly veiled threat to use economic sanctions against the Soviet Union. On May 8, the U.S. President ordered the lend-lease supplies [military aid] be greatly reduced, without prior notification. It went as far as the return of U.S. ships, already on the way to the Soviet Union, back to their home bases. Some time passed and the order to reduce the lend lease was cancelled otherwise the Soviet Union would not have joined the war against Japan, something the United States needed. But the bilateral relationship was damaged. The memorandum signed by Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew on May 19, 1945 stated that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable. It called for taking a tougher stand in the contacts with the Soviet Union. According to him, it was expedient to start the fighting before the USSR could recover from war and restore its huge military, economic and territorial potential.

The military received an impulse from politicians. In August 1945 (the war with Japan was not over) the map of strategic targets in the USSR and Manchuria was submitted to General L. Groves, the head of the U.S. nuclear program. The plan contained the list of the 15 largest cities of the Soviet Union: Moscow, Baku, Novosibirsk, Gorky, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Omsk, Kuibyshev, Kazan, Saratov, Molotov (Perm), Magnitogorsk, Grozny, Stalinsk (probably Stalino -- the contemporary Donetsk) and Nizhny Tagil. The targets were given descriptions: geography, industrial potential and the primary targets to hit. Washington opened a new front. This time it was against its ally.

London and Washington immediately forgot they fought shoulder to shoulder with the Soviet Union during the Second World War, as well as their commitments according to the agreements reached at the Yalta, Potsdam and San Francisco conferences.

(Strategic Culture Foundation, May 25, 2015. Slightly edited for grammar by TML. Republished in TML Weekly, June 6, 2015)

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At 75 NATO Has Nothing to Celebrate

Note

1. Cited in France and the Second World War: Occupation, Collaboration and Resistance, by Peter Davies, Routledge (London, 2001).

Ottawa, June 19

Calgary, June 19

"History will be kind to us because we will write it." -- Winston Churchill[1]

Post World War II occupation of Germany from 1945-49.

Notes

1. Said at the war-time conference of Allied leaders in Potsdam, 1945.

2. Churchill's infamous Iron Curtain Speech was made at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946.

3. From the article "Das Jahr 2000" in the newspaper Das Reich, February 25, 1945, pp. 1-2.

Winston Churchill and U.S. President Truman arrive at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946, where Churchill would deliver his warmongering "Iron Curtain" speech.

Soviet cartoon showing Churchill delivering his infamous 1946 speech, holding two flags that read "An Iron Curtain over Europe!" and"Anglo-Saxons Must Rule the World!" In the background are Hitler and Goebbels.

Reaction to Churchill's Speech

Atlanticism

Notes

1. Pearson's comments on Churchill's speech characteristically reveal the Liberal duplicity and how, even in 1946, the Canadian government was intriguing to form a new aggressive military bloc:

[...]

At the same time, dispatches from the Canadian Ambassador to the USSR, Hume Wrong, acknowledged that the Soviet Union was not at all preparing for war.

2. Cited in Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Co., 1977), pp. 175-6.

The "Nazi megaphone" himself may have gotten the term from the Wehrmacht propaganda publication Signal which in 1943 published an article by Randall Bytwerk entitled "Behind the Iron Curtain" who stated:

"He who has listened in on the interrogation of a Soviet prisoner of war knows that once the dam is broken, a flood of words begins as he tries to make clear what he experienced behind the mysterious iron curtain, which more than ever separates the world from the Soviet Union."

4. In a speech on April 27, 1941 following Nazi Germany's invasion of Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France, ending the so-called "phony war," Churchill had quoted poet Arthur Hugh Clough:

"But the British proposal went farther.

6. "'Operation Unthinkable' Churchill's Planned Invasion of the Soviet Union," July 1945, Yuriy Rubtsov, Strategic Culture Foundation, May 25, 2015.

7. Speech delivered by Churchill March 31, 1949 at Mid-Century Convocation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

8. J.V. Stalin, Interview with Pravda Correspondent Concerning Mr. Winston Churchill's Speech at Fulton, March, 1946, Source: J.V. Stalin on Post-War International Relations, Soviet News, 1947.

9. Ambassador in United States to Secretary of State for External Affairs, DESPATCH 511, Washington, March 11th, 1946.

10. "Once Again, the Big Yalta Lie," Jacob Heilbrunn, Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2005.

11. Ibid.

12. "A Look at Indian Philosophy -- The Zero Period," Discussion, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1992.

Charles Cogan, Senior Research Associate at the Kennedy School at Harvard University wrote of Lippmann's influence in a 2009 article entitled "American and European Foreign Relations":

Cogan points out that In the post-war period, a joint study was published on the same theme, by a Frenchman, Jacques Godechot, and an American, Robert Palmer, with the title of The Problem of the Atlantic. Cogan cites the authors as follows:

14. Ritchie was the scion of a prominent Loyalist family that fled to Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley following the American Revolution with enslaved Africans as personal chattel.

Report by Joint Planning Staff on Operation Unthinkable, May 22, 1945.

"History will be kind to us because we will write it."
-- Winston Churchill[1]

Post World War II occupation of Germany
from 1945-49.

Winston Churchill and U.S. President Truman arrive at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri,
March 5, 1946, where Churchill would deliver his warmongering "Iron Curtain" speech.