[Peace-discuss] Bill Blum's musings

[Morton K. Brussel]

 From ZNet, (which could use your financial support),
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2008-02/28blum.cfm

February 28, 2008

The Anti-Empire Report

By Bill Blum

NATO is a treaty on wheels -- It can be rolled in any direction to  
suit Washington's current policy

Have you by chance noticed that NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty  
Organization, has become virtually a country? With more international  
rights and military power than almost any other country in the world?  
Yes, the same NATO that we were told was created in 1949 to defend  
against a Soviet attack in Western Europe, and thus should have gone  
out of existence in 1991 when the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact  
expired and explicitly invited NATO to do the same. Other reasons  
have been suggested for NATO's creation: to help suppress the left in  
Italy and France if either country's Communist Party came to power  
through an election, and/or to advance American hegemony by  
preventing the major European nations from pursuing independent  
foreign policies. This latter notion has been around a long time. In  
2004, the US ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, stated: "Europeans  
need to resist creating a united Europe in competition or as a  
counterweight to the United States."[1]

The alliance has been kept amongst the living to serve as a very  
useful handmaiden of US foreign policy as well as providing American  
arms and airplane manufacturers with many billions of dollars of  
guaranteed sales due to the requirement that all NATO members meet a  
certain minimum warfare capability.

Here's some of what NATO has been up to in recent years as it strives  
to find a new raison d'être in the post-Cold War era.

It is presently waging war in Afghanistan on behalf of the United  
States and its illegal 2001 bombing and invasion of that pathetic  
land. NATO's forces free up US troops and assume much of the  
responsibility and blame, instead of Washington, for the many  
bombings which have caused serious civilian casualties and ruination.  
NATO also conducts raids into Pakistan, the legality of which is as  
non-existent as what they do in Afghanistan.

The alliance, which began with 15 members, now has 26, in addition to  
23 "partner countries" (under the reassuring name of ("Partnership  
for Peace"). Combined, that's more than one-fourth of the entire  
United Nations membership, and there are numerous other countries  
bribed and pressured to work with NATO, such as Jordan which recently  
sent troops to Afghanistan. Jordan and Qatar have offered to host a  
NATO-supported regional Security Cooperation Centre. NATO has a  
training mission in Iraq, and Iraqi military personnel receive  
training in NATO members' countries. In recent years, almost all  
members of the alliance and the Partnership for Peace have sent  
troops to Iraq or Afghanistan or the former Yugoslavia, in each case  
serving as proxy US-occupation forces. Israel has had talks with the  
alliance about the deployment of a NATO force in their country. India  
is scheduled to participate in upcoming NATO war games. The list goes  
on, as the alliance's outreach keeps reaching out further, holding  
international conferences to bring together new and potential allies,  
under names such as the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, and the  
Mediterranean Dialogue (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania,  
Morocco and Tunisia), or expanding military ties with existing  
international organizations such as the Gulf Cooperation Council  
(Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates).

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, NATO gave the United States  
carte blanche to travel throughout Europe transporting men to be  
tortured.[2] It's like a refined gentleman's club with some unusual  
member privileges. NATO also goes around monitoring elections, the  
latest being in Upper Abkhazia (claimed by Georgia) in January.

The alliance has military bases in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal,  
Netherlands, and elsewhere in Europe, and regularly conducts "naval  
operations in the Mediterranean to actively demonstrate NATO's  
resolve and solidarity", as NATO puts it. This includes AWAC  
(Airborne Warning and Control) aircraft patrolling the Mediterranean  
from above and frequently stopping and boarding ships and boats at  
sea. "Since the start of the operation," reports NATO, "nearly 79,000  
merchant vessels have been monitored (as of 12 April 2006) ... The  
surveillance operation utilizes ship, aircraft and submarine assets  
to build a picture of maritime activity in the Area of Operations."  
The exercise includes "actions aimed at preventing or countering  
terrorism coming from or conducted at sea and all illegality possibly  
connected with terrorism, such as human trafficking and smuggling of  
arms and radioactive substances." NATO is truly Lord of the  
Mediterranean, unelected, unauthorized, and unsupervised.

NATO, which has ready access to nuclear weapons from several of its  
members (only with Washington's approval), has joined the United  
States in its operation to surround Russia. "Look," said Russian  
president Vladimir Putin about NATO as far back as 2001, "this is a  
military organization. It's moving towards our border. Why?"[3] As of  
December 2007, Moscow's concern had not lessened. The Russian Deputy  
Foreign Minister lashed out at NATO's steady expansion into former  
Soviet-dominated eastern Europe, saying the policy was "a leftover  
from the time of the Cold War".[4] Finland -- which shares a border  
with Russia of more than 1300 km -- is now being considered for  
membership in NATO.

Ever since it undertook a Washington-instigated 78-day bombing of the  
former Yugoslavia in 1999, NATO has been operating in the Balkans  
like a colonial Governor-General. Along with the UN, it's been  
leading a peacekeeping operation in Kosovo and takes part in the  
policing of Bosnia, including searching people's homes looking for  
suspected war criminals wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal  
for the Former Yugoslavia. The triumvirate of NATO, the United  
States, and the European Union have been supporting Kosovo's plan to  
unilaterally declare independence from Serbia, thus bypassing the UN  
Security Council where Serbia's ally, Russia, has a veto. We  
therefore have the Western powers unilaterally declaring the  
independence of a part of another country's territory; this because  
the Kosovo ethnic Albanians are regarded as much more reliably "pro- 
West" than is Serbia, which has refused to look upon the free market  
and the privatization of the world known as "globalization" as the  
summum bonum, nor shown proper enthusiasm for an American or NATO  
military installation upon its soil. Kosovo, however, does have a  
large US military base on its territory. Any attempt by Serbia to  
militarily prevent Kosovo from seceding would in all likelihood be  
met by NATO/US military force. You may wonder what a United States  
military base is doing in Kosovo. People all over the world wonder  
the same about their local American bases.

You may also wonder: What force exists to slow down the growth of the  
Mediterranean Monster? Who can stand up to it? The military elite of  
the triumvirate take such a question seriously. What they apparently  
fear the most is nuclear weapons in the hands of the wrong people;  
i.e., those who don't recognize the triumvirate's right to dictate to  
the world. On January 22 the Guardian of London reported that the  
former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and  
the Netherlands had released a manifesto which insists that a "first  
strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since  
there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world". The  
paper had earlier been presented to NATO's secretary general and to  
the Pentagon. It is likely to be discussed at a NATO summit in  
Bucharest in April, along with the possible extension of the alliance  
to include five more countries which had been part of, or bordered  
on, the Soviet Empire: Croatia, Georgia, Macedonia, Albania and Ukraine.

The five generals who authored the report could have advocated a  
serious international campaign to begin the process of actually  
creating a nuclear-free world. Instead, they call for an end to the  
European Union's "obstruction" of and rivalry with NATO and a shift  
from consensus decision-taking in NATO bodies to majority voting,  
meaning an end to national vetoes.

So there you have it. The international military elite are demanding  
yet more power and autonomy for NATO. Questioning voices in the  
alliance, in the European Union, or anywhere else should forget their  
concerns about a nuclear-free world, international law, pre-emptive  
war, wars of aggression, national sovereignty, and all that other  
United Nations Charter and human-rights nonsense. We're gonna nuke  
all those Arab terrorists before they have a chance to say Allah Akbar.

The arrogance continues, with the manifesto specifying "no role in  
decision-taking on Nato operations for alliance members who are not  
taking part in the operations," calling also for the use of force  
without UN Security Council authorization when "immediate action is  
needed to protect large numbers of human beings". Now who can argue  
against protecting large numbers of human beings?

The paper also declares that "Nato's credibility is at stake in  
Afghanistan" and "Nato is at a juncture and runs the risk of  
failure." The German general went so far as to declare that his own  
country, by insisting upon a non-combat role for its forces in  
Afghanistan, was contributing to "the dissolution of Nato". Such  
immoderate language may be a reflection of the dark cloud which has  
hovered over the alliance since the end of the Cold War -- that NATO  
has no legitimate reason for existence and that failure in  
Afghanistan would make this thought more present in the world's mind.  
If NATO hadn't begun to intervene outside of Europe it would have  
highlighted its uselessness and lack of mission. "Out of area or out  
of business" it was said.[5]

Democracy is a beautiful thing, except that part about letting just  
any old jerk vote.

"The people can have anything they want. The trouble is, they do not  
want anything. At least they vote that way on election day."

Eugene Debs, American socialist leader, early 20th century

Why was the primary vote for former presidential candidate Dennis  
Kucinich so small when anti-Iraq war sentiment in the United States  
is supposedly so high, and Kucinich was easily the leading anti-war  
candidate in the Democratic race, indeed the only genuine one after  
former Senator Mike Gravel withdrew? Even allowing for his being cut  
out of several debates, Kucinich's showing was remarkably poor. In  
Michigan, on January 15, it was only Kucinich and Clinton running.  
Clinton got 56% of the vote, the "uncommitted" vote (for candidates  
who had withdrawn but whose names were still on the ballot) was 39%,  
and Kucinich received but 4%. And Clinton, remember, has been the  
leading pro-war hawk of all the Democratic candidates.

I think much of the answer lies in the fact that the majority of the  
American people -- like the majority of people all over the world --  
aren't very sophisticated politically, and many of them aren't  
against the war for very cerebral reasons. Their opposition perhaps  
stems mainly from the large number of American soldiers who've lost  
their lives, or because the United States is not "winning", or  
because America's reputation in the world is being soiled, or because  
a majority of other Americans express their opposition to the war, or  
because of George W.'s multiple character defects, or because of a  
number of other reasons you couldn't even guess at. Not much  
especially perceptive or learned in this collection.

I think there are all kinds of intelligence in this world: musical,  
scientific, mathematical, artistic, academic, literary, mechanical,  
and so on. Then there's political intelligence, which I would define  
as the ability to see through the bullshit which the leaders and  
politicians of every society, past, present and future, feed their  
citizens from birth on to win elections and assure continuance of the  
prevailing ideology.

This is why it's so important for all of us to continue "preaching to  
the choir" and "preaching to the converted". That's what speakers and  
writers and other activists are often scoffed at for doing -- saying  
the same old thing to the same old people, just spinning their  
wheels. But long experience as speaker, writer and activist in the  
area of foreign policy tells me it just ain't so. From the questions  
and comments I regularly get from my audiences, via email and in  
person, and from other people's audiences as well, I can plainly see  
that there are numerous significant information gaps and  
misconceptions in the choir's thinking, often leaving them unable to  
see through the newest government lie or propaganda trick; they're  
unknowing or forgetful of what happened in the past that illuminates  
the present; knowing the facts but unable to apply them at the  
appropriate moment; vulnerable to being led astray by the next person  
who offers a specious argument that opposes what they currently  
believe, or think they believe. The choir needs to be frequently  
reminded and enlightened.

As cynical as others may think they are, the choir is frequently not  
cynical enough about the power elite's motivations. They  
underestimate the government's capacity for deceit, clinging to the  
belief that their government somehow means well; they're moreover  
insufficiently skilled at reading between the media's lines. And this  
all applies to how they view political candidates as well. Try asking  
"anti-war" supporters of Hillary Clinton if they know what a hawk she  
is, that -- as but one example -- she's promised that American forces  
will not leave Iraq while she's president. (And Obama loves the  
empire as much as Clinton.) When Ronald Reagan was president, on  
several occasions polls revealed that many, if not most, people who  
supported him were actually opposed to many of his specific policies.

In sum, even when the hearts of the chorus may be in the right place,  
their heads still need working on, on a recurring basis. And in any  
event, very few people are actually born into the choir; they achieve  
choir membership only after being preached to, multiple times.

When I speak in public, and when I can mention it in an interview, I  
raise the question of the motivations of the administration. As long  
as people believe that our so-called leaders are well-intentioned,  
the leaders can, and do, get away with murder. Literally.

"How to get people to vote against their interests and to really  
think against their interests is very clever. It's the cleverest  
ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It's been 200  
years at it. It's superb." Gore Vidal

Another interesting view of the American electoral system comes from  
Cuban leader Raúl Castro. He recently noted that the United States  
pits two identical parties against one another, and joked that a  
choice between a Republican and Democrat is like choosing between  
himself and his brother Fidel.

"We could say in Cuba we have two parties: one led by Fidel and one  
led by Raúl, what would be the difference?" he asked. "That's the  
same thing that happens in the United States ... both are the same.  
Fidel is a little taller than me, he has a beard and I don't."[6]

Speaking of political intelligence ... take a little stroll with  
Alice through the American wonderland ... just for laughs

"This war [in Iraq] is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S.  
democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan. ... it is one of  
the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad." -- Thomas  
Friedman, much-acclaimed New York Times foreign-affairs analyst,  
November 2003[7]

"President Bush has placed human rights at the center of his foreign  
policy agenda in unprecedented ways." -- Michael Gerson, columnist  
for the Washington Post, 2007[8]

The war in Iraq "is one of the noblest endeavors the United States,  
or any great power, has ever undertaken." -- David Brooks, New York  
Times columnist and National Public Radio (NPR) commentator (2007)[9]

If this is what leading American public intellectuals believe and  
impart to their audiences, is it any wonder that the media can short  
circuit people's critical faculties altogether? It should as well be  
noted that these three journalists are all with "liberal" media.

And when Hillary Clinton says in the January 31 debate with Barack  
Obama: "We bombed them [Iraq] for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein  
threw out inspectors," and the fact is that the UN withdrew its  
weapons inspectors because the Clinton administration had made it  
clear that it was about to start bombing Iraq ...

Obama didn't correct her. Neither did any of the eminent journalists  
on the panel, though this particular piece of disinformation has been  
repeated again and again in the media, and has been corrected again  
and again by those on the left. Comrades, we have our work cut out  
for us. The chorus needs us. America needs us. Keep preaching.

Teaching political intelligence

If you're a high school or college teacher, you might want to look at  
http://www.teachpeace.com/highschoolkit.htm for teaching aids to  
impart a progressive outlook on US foreign policy and related issues  
to your students.

NOTES

[1] Jewish Telegraph Agency, international wire service, February 16,  
2004

[2] The Guardian (London), June 7, 2007, article by Stephen Grey,  
author of "Ghost Plane: The inside story of the CIA Torture  
Program" (2006)

[3] Associated Press, June 16, 2001

[4] Focus News Agency (Bulgaria)/Agence France-Presse, December 26, 2007

[5] Much of the NATO material can be found on NATO's website: http:// 
www.nato.int/home.htm. Also see an abundance of material at: http:// 
groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages

[6] Associated Press, CNN.com, December 25, 2007

[7] New York Times, November 30, 2003

[8] Washington Post, September 7, 2007

[9] Mary Eberstadt, ed., "Why I turned Right: Leading Baby Boom  
Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys" (2007), p.73

William Blum is the author of: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA  
Interventions Since World War 2 Rogue State: A Guide to the World's  
Only Superpower West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir Freeing the  
World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

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