[Peace-discuss] RE: NATO and Darfur

Thu Mar 9 21:11:47 CST 2006

How can you be so sure what NATO's role would be, Scott?  Do
you rely on the candor of this administration?

A better predictor might be what the USG has done in the past.
Control of European militaries was one of the spoils of war
when the US displaced Britain and Germany after WWII.  The
collapse of the Soviet Union, the existence of which was the
ostensible excuse for NATO, hardly led to its demise: on the
contrary, the US expanded it to the Russian border (after
promising not to) and enlarged its role in the US hegemony.

On the excuse of genocide in Kosovo, the US used NATO to
reduce the Serbian roadblock to control of what Rumsfeld
called "New Europe" -- which the US used to counterbalance the
occasionally uppity Old Europe -- and the cream of the jest
was that the US used Old Europe's troops (NATO) to do it.

Fresh from war crimes committed for "humanitarian" reasons in
Serbia, NATO troops were projected outward by the USG even
beyond Europe to do its dirty work in Afghanistan.  (There's a
parallel in the US rejections of offers to negotiate from
Serbia and Afghanistan before the US launched its attacks.)
Now NATO troops exercise protectorates in Kosovo and
Afghanistan, but it's US geopolitical purposes that are being
served. Far from "inflammatory," talk of the US use of NATO is
a refusal to forget recent history.

Now US politicians and pundits, both right and left (rather
meaningless expressions of convenience) are calling for an
expanded NATO role.  Eric Reeves, whom you quote on NATO's
saying it won't send troops to Darfur, in fact argues
strenuously in a liberal journal this week that NATO should be
made to do so: "Bush should say clearly: You will. And America
will lead the way." 

>From Rome's barbarian legions to the Ottoman janissaries,
empires typically try to get subject peoples to do the
fighting for them.  Mutatis mutandis, the US has clearly used
NATO that way.  It's unconscionable to allow the use the
suffering in Darfur (or Kosovo) as a cover for the expansion
of US hegemony.

Regards, Carl

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 13:27:05 -0600
>From: "Scott Edwards" <scottisimo at hotmail.com>  
>Subject: [Peace-discuss] RE: NATO and Darfur  
>To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>
>The much discussed role of NATO would not, in fact, be as it
was in Kosovo.
>
>And, with due respect, it is not the case that NATO would
serve even as a 
>"steward" of a transferred peacekeeping force. NATO would
serve only as a 
>bridging between AMIS and a Blue-helmet mission. And, from
Eric Reeves:
>
>"Privately, Bush administration officials make clear there
was never any 
>intention of committing US or NATO troops---nor any belief in
the moral and 
>contractual obligation (per the terms of the 1948 UN
Convention on the 
>Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide) to halt
massive, ongoing 
>genocidal destruction by all necessary means."
>
>NATO has made clear it will do nothing without Security Council 
>authorization (to Bush's dismay), and even then, it would
serve only as an 
>"enabling" capacity.
>
>And as inflamatory as talk about a NATO role is, it is
irrelevant. The 
>ongoing discussion concerns how to replace/restructure the
AMIS force which 
>is unable to meet the "moral and contractual obligation". If
there is to be 
>discussion about how moral this obligation actually is, so be
it. But the 
>NATO issue, while I understand the sensitivity, is a Red Herring.
>
>If you have the time and energy, see the DOS's Annual Report
on Human 
>Right's Practices for Sudan. I have some issues with numbers,
but it is 
>generally comprehensive, and hot off the "press" (released 2
hours ago).
>
>http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61594.htm
>
>Best,
>scott
>
>
>
>*****************
>Scott Edwards
>Amnesty International, US
>Country Specialist for Sudan
>_________________________________
>Gender Projects Manager
>Coordinative Effort for the Reporting of Rights Violations
(CERRV)
>_________________________________
>
>
>
>
>
>>From: peace-discuss-request at lists.chambana.net
>>Reply-To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>Subject: Peace-discuss Digest, Vol 26, Issue 16
>>Date: Wed,  8 Mar 2006 12:01:33 -0600 (CST)
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>>Today's Topics:
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>>    1. NATO and Darfur (C. G. Estabrook)
>>
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>>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Message: 1
>>Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 09:28:36 -0600
>>From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>>Subject: [Peace-discuss] NATO and Darfur
>>To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>Message-ID: <5f81b3b9.95d8aa6f.81e8000 at expms1.cites.uiuc.edu>
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>>
>><http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w060306&s=reeves030806>
>>
>>--this article in the current New Republic (online) asserts an
>>interventionist position quite similar to the Clinton
>>administration's on Kosovo.  TNR summarizes it as follows:
>>
>>"NATO says it won't send troops to Darfur. Bush should say
>>clearly: You will. And America will lead the way."
>>
>>--CGE
>>
>>
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