How Madeleine Albright Got the War the U.S. Wanted
By Gregory Elich | Global Research | May 13, 2019
Twenty years have passed since the U.S.-orchestrated NATO attack on Yugoslavia. As the United States readied its forces for war in 1999, it organized a peace conference that was ostensibly intended to resolve differences between the Yugoslav government and secessionist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo on the future status of the province. A different scenario was being played out behind the scenes, however. U.S. officials wanted war and deliberately set up the process to fail, which they planned to use as a pretext for war.
The talks opened on February 6, 1999, in Rambouillet, France. Officially, the negotiations were led by a Contact Group comprised of U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia Christopher Hill, European Union envoy Wolfgang Petritsch, and Russian diplomat Boris Mayorsky. All decisions were supposed to be jointly agreed upon by all three members of the Contact Group. In actual practice, the U.S. ran the show all the way and routinely bypassed Petritsch and Mayorsky on essential matters.
Ibrahim Rugova, an ethnic Albanian activist who advocated nonviolence, was expected to play a major role in the Albanian secessionist delegation. Joining him at Rambouillet was Fehmi Agani, a fellow member of Rugova’s Democratic League of Kosovo.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright regularly sidelined Rugova, however, preferring to rely on delegation members from the hardline Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which had routinely murdered Serbs, Roma, and Albanians in Kosovo who worked for the government or opposed separatism. Only a few months before the conference, KLA spokesman Bardhyl Mahmuti spelled out his organization’s vision of a future Kosovo as separate and ethnically pure: “The independence of Kosovo is the only solution… We cannot live together. That is excluded.” [1]
Rugova had at one time engaged in fairly productive talks with Yugoslav officials, and his willingness to negotiate was no doubt precisely the reason Albright relegated him to a background role. Yugoslav Minister of Information Milan Komnenić accompanied the Yugoslav delegation to Rambouillet. He recalls, “With Rugova and Fehmi Agani it was possible to talk; they were flexible. In Rambouillet, [KLA leader Hashim] Thaçi appears instead of Rugova. A beast.” [2] There was no love between Thaçi and Rugova, whose party members were the targets of threats and assassination attempts at the hands of the KLA. Rugova himself would survive an assassination attempt six years later.
The composition of the Yugoslav delegation reflected its position that many ethnic groups resided in Kosovo, and any agreement arrived at should take into account the interests of all parties. All of Kosovo’s major ethnic groups were represented in the delegation. Faik Jashari, one of the Albanian members in the Yugoslav delegation, was president of the Kosovo Democratic Initiative and an official in the Provisional Executive Council, which was Yugoslavia’s government in Kosovo. Jashari observed that Albright was startled when she saw the composition of the Yugoslav delegation, apparently because it went against the U.S. propaganda narrative. [3] Throughout the talks, Albright displayed a dismissive attitude towards the delegation’s Albanian, Roma, Egyptian, Goran, Turkish, and Slavic Muslim members.
U.S. mediators habitually referred to the Yugoslav delegation as “the Serbs,” even though they constituted a minority of the members. The Americans persisted in trying to cast events in Kosovo as a simplistic binary relationship of Serb versus Albanian, disregarding the presence of other ethnic groups in the province, and ignoring the fact that while some ethnic Albanians favored separation, others wished to remain in multiethnic Yugoslavia.
After arriving at Rambouillet, the secessionist Albanian delegation informed U.S. diplomats that it did not want to meet with the Yugoslav side. Aside from a brief ceremonial meeting, there was no direct contact between the two groups. The Yugoslav and Albanian delegations were placed on two different floors to eliminate nearly all contact. U.S. mediators Richard Holbrooke and Christopher Hill ran from one delegation to the other, conveying notes and verbal messages between the two sides but mostly trying to coerce the Yugoslav delegation. [4]
Luan Koka, a Roma member of the Yugoslav delegation, noted that the U.S. was operating an electronic jamming device. “We knew exactly when Madeleine Albright was coming. Connections on our mobile phones were breaking up and going crazy.” [5] It is probable that the U.S. was also operating electronic listening equipment and that U.S. mediators knew everything the delegations were saying in private.
Albright, Jashari said, would not listen to anyone. “She had her task, and she saw only that task. You couldn’t say anything to her. She didn’t want to talk with us and didn’t want to listen to our arguments.” [6]
One day it was Koka’s birthday, and the Yugoslav delegation wanted to encourage a more relaxed atmosphere with U.S. mediators, inviting them to a cocktail party to mark the occasion. “It was a slightly more pleasant atmosphere, and I was singing,” Koka recalled. “I remember Madeleine Albright saying: ‘I really like partisan songs. But if you don’t accept this, the bombs will fall.’” [7] According to delegation member Nikola Šainović, “Madeleine Albright told us all the time: ‘If the Yugoslav delegation does not accept what we offer, you will be bombed.’” Šainović added, “We agreed in Rambouillet to any form of autonomy for Kosovo,” but sovereignty remained the red line. [8]
From the beginning of the conference, U.S. mediator Christopher Hill “decided that what we really needed was an Albanian approval of a document, and a Serb refusal. If both refused, there could be no further action by NATO or any other organization for that matter.” [9] It was not peace that the U.S. team was seeking, but war.
As the conference progressed, U.S. negotiators were faced with an alarming problem, in that the Yugoslav delegation had accepted all of the Contact Group’s fundamental political principles for an agreement, balking only at a NATO presence in Kosovo. On the other hand, the secessionist delegation rejected the Contact Group’s political principles. Something had to be done to reverse this pattern.
On the second day of the conference, U.S. officials presented the Yugoslav delegation with the framework text of a provisional agreement for peace and self-rule in Kosovo, but it was missing some of the annexes. The Yugoslavs requested a copy of the complete document. As delegation head Ratko Marković pointed out, “Any objections to the text of the agreement could be made only after an insight into the text as a whole had been obtained.” Nearly one week passed before the group received one of the missing annexes. That came on the day the conference had originally been set to end. The deadline was extended, and two days later a second missing annex was provided to the Yugoslav delegation.[10]
When the Yugoslavs next met with the Contact Group, they were assured that all elements of the text had now been given to them. Several more days passed and at 7:00 PM on February 22, the penultimate day of the conference, the Contact Group presented three new annexes, which the Yugoslavs had never seen before. According to Marković, “Russian Ambassador Boris Mayorsky informed our delegation that Annexes 2 and 7 had not been discussed or approved by the Contact Group and that they were not the texts drafted by the Contact Group but by certain Contact Group members, while Annex 5 was discussed, but no decision was made on it at the Contact Group meeting.” The Yugoslav delegation refused to accept the new annexes, as their introduction had violated the process whereby all proposals had to be agreed upon by the three Contact Group members. [11]
At 9:30 AM on February 23, the final day of the conference, U.S. officials presented the full text of the proposal, containing yet more provisions that were being communicated for the first time. The accompanying note identified the package as the definitive text while adding that Russia did not support two of the articles. The letter demanded the Yugoslav delegation’s decision by 1:00 PM that same day.[12] There was barely time enough to carefully read the text, let alone negotiate. In essence, it was an ultimatum.
Quite intentionally, U.S. mediators included provisions in the final version of the text that no sovereign nation could be expected to accept. Neoliberal economic interests are always front and center when U.S. officials are involved, and they surely were not unaware of Kosovo’s abundant reserves of mineral resources, ripe for exploitation. The first point in Article 1 of the Economic Issues section of the text states: “The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles.” Western investors were favored with a provision stating that authorities shall “ensure the free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital to Kosovo, including from international sources.” [13] One may wonder what these stipulations had to do with peace negotiations, but then the talks had far more to do with U.S. interests than anything to do with the needs of the people in the region.
The document called for a Western-led Joint Commission including local representatives to monitor and coordinate the implementation of the plan. However, if commission members failed to reach consensus on a matter, the Western-appointed Chair would have the power to impose his decision unilaterally. [14] Local representatives would serve as little more than window-dressing for Western dictate, as they could adopt no measure that went against the Chair’s wishes.
The Chair of the Implementation Mission was authorized to “recommend” the “removal and appointment of officials and the curtailment of operations of existing institutions in Kosovo.” If the Chair’s command was not obeyed “in the time requested, the Joint Commission may decide to take the recommended action,” and since the Chair had the authority to impose his will on the Joint Commission, there was no check on his power. He could remove elected and appointed officials at will and replace them with handpicked lackeys. The Chair was also authorized to order the “curtailment of operations of existing institutions.” [15] Any organization that failed to bend to U.S. demands could be shut down.
Chapter 7 of the plan called for the parties to “invite NATO to constitute and lead a military force” in Kosovo. [16] The choice of words was interesting. In language reminiscent of gangsters, Yugoslavia was told to “invite” NATO to take over the province of Kosovo or suffer the consequences.
Yugoslavia was required “to provide, at no cost, the use of all facilities and services required” by NATO. [17] Within six months, Yugoslavia would have to withdraw all of its military forces from Kosovo, other than a small number of border guards. [18]
The plan granted NATO “unrestricted use of the entire electromagnetic spectrum” to “communicate.” Although the document indicated NATO would make “reasonable efforts to coordinate,” there were no constraints on its power. [19] Yugoslav officials, “upon simple request,” would be required to grant NATO “all telecommunication services, including broadcast services…free of cost.” [20] NATO could take over any radio and television facilities and transmission wavelengths it chose, knocking local stations off the air.
The plan did not restrict NATO’s presence to Kosovo. It granted NATO, with its “vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia].” [21] NATO would be “granted the use of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tools, or charges.” [22]
The agreement guaranteed that NATO would have “complete and unimpeded freedom of movement by ground, air, and water into and throughout Kosovo.” Furthermore, NATO personnel could not be held “liable for any damages to public or private property.” [23] NATO as a whole would also be “immune from all legal process, whether civil, administrative, or criminal,” regardless of its actions anywhere on the territory of Yugoslavia. [24] Nor could NATO personnel be arrested, detained, or investigated. [25]
Acceptance of the plan would have brought NATO troops swarming throughout Yugoslavia and interfering in every institution.
There were several other objectionable elements in the plan, but one that stood out was the call for an “international” (meaning, Western-led) meeting to be held after three years “to determine a mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo.” [26] It was no mystery to the Yugoslav delegation what conclusion Western officials would arrive at in that meeting. The intent was clearly to redraw Yugoslavia’s borders to further break apart the nation.
U.S. officials knew the Yugoslav delegation could not possibly accept such a plan. “We deliberately set the bar higher than the Serbs could accept,” Madeleine Albright confided to a group of journalists, “because they needed a little bombing.” [27]
At a meeting in Belgrade on March 5, the Yugoslav delegation issued a statement which declared: “A great deceit was looming, orchestrated by the United States. They demanded that the agreement be signed, even though much of this agreement, that is, over 56 pages, had never been discussed, either within the Contact Group or during the negotiations.” [28]
Serbian President Milan Milutinović announced at a press conference that in Rambouillet the Yugoslav delegation had “proposed solutions meeting the demands of the Contact Group for broad autonomy within Serbia, advocating full equality of all national communities.” But “agreement was not what they were after.” Instead, Western officials engaged in “open aggression,” and this was a game “about troops and troops alone.” [29]
While U.S. officials were working assiduously to avoid a peaceful resolution, they needed the Albanians to agree to the plan so that they could accuse the Yugoslav delegation of being the stumbling block to peace. U.S. mainstream media could be counted on to unquestioningly repeat the government’s line and overlook who the real architects of failure were. U.S. officials knew the media would act in their customary role as cheerleaders for war, which indeed, they did.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook revealed the nature of the message Western officials were conveying to the Albanian delegation when he said, “We are certainly saying to the Kosovo Albanians that if you don’t sign up to these texts, it’s extremely difficult to see how NATO could then take action against Belgrade.” [30] Western officials were practically begging the secessionists to sign the plan. According to inside sources, the Americans assured the Albanian delegation that disarmament of the KLA would be merely symbolic and that it could keep the bulk of its weaponry so long as it was concealed. [31]
Albright spent hours trying to convince Thaçi to change his mind, telling him: “If you say yes and the Serbs say no, NATO will strike and go on striking until the Serb forces are out and NATO can go in. You will have security. And you will be able to govern yourselves.” [32] That was a clear enough signal that the intent was to rip the province away from Yugoslavia and create an artificial state. Despite such assurances, Thaçi feared the wrath of fellow KLA members if he were to sign a document that did not explicitly call for separation. When U.S. negotiators asked Thaçi why he would not sign, he responded: “If I agree to this, I will go home and they will kill me.” [33] This was not hyperbole. The KLA had threatened and murdered a great many Albanians who in its eyes fell short of full-throated support for its policy of violent secession and ethnic exclusion.
Even NATO Commander Wesley Clark, who flew in from Belgium, was unable to change Thaçi’s mind. [34] U.S. officials were exasperated with the Albanian delegation, and its recalcitrance threatened to capsize plans for war. “Rambouillet was supposed to be about putting the screws to Belgrade,” a senior U.S. official said. “But it went off the rails because of the miscalculation we made about the Albanians.” [35]
On the last day at Rambouillet, it was agreed that the Albanian delegation would return to Kosovo for discussions with fellow KLA leaders on the need to sign the document. In the days that followed, Western officials paid repeated visits to Kosovo to encourage the Albanians to sign.
So-called “negotiations” reconvened in Paris on March 15. Upon its arrival, the Yugoslav delegation objected that it was “incomprehensible” that “no direct talks between the two delegations had been facilitated.” In response to the Yugoslavs’ proposal for modifications to the plan, the Contact Group informed them that no changes would be accepted. The document must be accepted as a whole. [36]
The Yugoslav position, delegation head Ratko Marković maintained, was that “first one needs to determine what is to be implemented, and only then to determine the methods of implementation.” [37] The delegation asked the Americans what there was to talk about regarding implementation “when there was no agreement because the Albanians did not accept anything.” U.S. officials responded that the Yugoslav delegation “cannot negotiate,” adding that it would only be allowed to make grammatical changes to the text. [38]
From the U.S. perspective, the presence of the Yugoslav delegation in Paris was irrelevant other than to maintain the pretense that negotiations were taking place. Not permitted to negotiate, there was little the Yugoslavs could do but await the inevitable result, which soon came. The moment U.S. officials obtained the Albanian delegation’s signatures to the plan on March 18, they aborted the Paris Conference. There was no reason to continue engaging with the Yugoslav delegation, as the U.S. had what it needed: a pretext for war.
On the day after the U.S. pulled the plug on the Paris talks, Milan Milutinović held a press conference in the Yugoslav embassy, condemning the Paris meeting as “a kind of show,” which was meant “to deceive public opinion in the whole world.” [39]
While the United States and its NATO allies prepared for war, Yugoslavia was making last-ditch efforts to stave off attack, including reaching out to intermediaries. Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos contacted Madeleine Albright and told her that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević had offered to engage in further negotiations. But Albright told him that the decision to bomb had already been made. “In fact,” Pangalos reported, “she told me to ‘desist, you’re just being a nuisance.’” [40] In a final act of desperation to save the people from bombing, Milutinović contacted Christopher Hill and made an extraordinary offer: Yugoslavia would join NATO if the United States would allow Yugoslavia to remain whole, including the province of Kosovo. Hill responded that this was not a topic for discussion and he would not talk about it. [41]
Madeleine Albright got her war, which brought death, destruction, and misery to Yugoslavia. But NATO had a new role, and the United States further extended its hegemony over the Balkans.
In the years following the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, NATO was intent on redefining its mission. The absence of the socialist bloc presented NATO not only with the need to construct a new rationale for existence but also with the opportunity to expand Western domination over other nations.
Bosnia offered the first opportunity for NATO to begin its transformation, as it took part in a war that presented no threat to member nations.
Bombing Yugoslavia was meant to solidify the new role for NATO as an offensive military force, acting on behalf of U.S. imperial interests. Since that time, NATO has attacked Libya, and engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a variety of nations in Africa. Despite NATO’s claim that it is “committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes,” the record shows otherwise.
‘Too much money invested in war’: US defense industry drives global military spending spree
RT | April 30, 2019
Global military expenditures reached their peak in 2018, and the driving force behind this increase is the growing appetite of the US military-industrial complex rather than real threats, analysts say.
The world spent $1.8 trillion on its military in 2018, the latest report by the acclaimed Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The US and its NATO allies – the self-proclaimed defenders of freedom and democracy – account for more than half of this whopping amount.
Washington’s other close friend Saudi Arabia is the third largest military spender, coming ahead of India.
“A lot of this spending, particularly in the case of Saudi Arabia and India, is for political reasons,” Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst at the Pentagon, told RT. New Delhi and Riyadh seek to “curry favor” with Washington by purchasing the US weapons in hope for concessions in other areas, he explained.
Washington’s NATO allies have seen pressure from the US related to their military spending ever since Donald Trump came to power in the White House. Maloof believes it has less to do with security of the alliance and more with the interests of the US arms manufacturers.
“A lot of that is aimed at trying to help the US defense industry to stay ahead [of their competitors] and hire more people,” he explained, adding that the issue of the military expenditures has a “clear economic dimension.”
In its desire to sate the always-hungry domestic military industrial complex, the US risks escalating tensions on the international arena, analysts warn. Washington’s hawks typically justify the need for ever-increasing military expenditures with some perceived threats from Russia or China, portraying them as war mongers.
“There is no good reason” for larger defense budgets, Ted Seay, a former US diplomat and senior policy consultant with the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), told RT. It is the West’s fear of the perceived ‘Russian threat’ that has in fact led to destabilization on the European continent, he noted.
“There are military provocations taking place between NATO and Russia where there should not be any far in the 21th century when there is no logical reason for any confrontation between Europe and Russia,” Seay said.
The former US diplomat also denounced as senseless the NATO “formula” demanding that member states spend two percent of their GDP on defense.
There is not a military situation that necessitates [the likes of] Latvia or Poland to find a solution in greater military spending. It simply does not exist in this age. But there are people who seem to be intent on creating confrontation and encouraging the NATO countries to spend more money with no good reason.
Yet, it is precisely Poland and the Baltic States that top the list of nations with the highest annual defense spending increases in Europe over the recent years.
Poland’s military budget rose by 8.9 per cent in 2018 to $11.6 billion, according to SIPRI, while Latvia upped its military expenditures by staggering 24 percent over the same period. Bulgaria and Ukraine – which is not in NATO – followed closely, increasing their spending by 23 and 21 percent respectively.
Meanwhile, the US and its allies grossly outspend all the nations they perceive as alleged threats. The US expenditures alone accounted for 36 percent of global defense spending while exceeding the expenditures of the next eight largest-spending countries combined in 2018. NATO’s total military spending accounted for 53 percent of the global defense expenditures.
China was the only Washington’s perceived rival that made it into top 5 military spenders in 2018. However, Beijing’s defense budget amounted to only a fraction of the US one and accounted for 14 percent of the global military spending.
Russia, meanwhile, came it at number six by spending some $61.4 billion on the military in 2018, following consecutive defense budget cuts in the last two years. However, these facts do not stop the biggest military spender in the world to accuse Moscow of somehow initiating an “arms race.”
Anyway, the latest trends show that the world is unlikely to see easing of tensions on the international arena anytime soon, Seay warns.
The US-NATO Alliance Has Georgia on Its Mind
By Brian Cloughley | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 29, 2019
Britain’s Daily Express newspaper is a bizarre publication that specialises in sensationalist raving. Some of its reports are weird beyond imagination, and it went even further than usual into fogs of delusion on April 21 when one of its headlines announced “World War 3: UK CONFRONTS Russia by sending warship to Black Sea.”
The vessel despatched on a “freedom of navigation manoeuvre” by the UK’s Royal Navy is HMS Echo, which cannot be described as a warship. It is “designed to carry out a wide range of survey work, including support to submarine and amphibious operations” and it carries a few cannon and machine guns, but it is difficult to see how it could confront anything more deadly than a prawn-boat. It is, however, part of the grand plan of the US-NATO military alliance which on April 4 “agreed a package of measures to improve NATO’s situational awareness in the Black Sea region and strengthen support for partners Georgia and Ukraine.”
HQ NATO much regrets that its encirclement of Russia does not yet include Georgia or Ukraine. The Brussels sub-office of the Pentagon is trying hard to formally enlist both countries and announced on March 26 that “Georgia is one of the Alliance’s closest partners. It aspires to join the Alliance. The country actively contributes to NATO-led operations and cooperates with the Allies and other partner countries in many other areas. Over time, a broad range of practical cooperation has developed between NATO and Georgia, which supports Georgia’s reform efforts and its goal of Euro-Atlantic integration.”
The day before NATO’s declaration the globe-trotting head of the organisation, Jens Stoltenberg, was in Georgia to attend military exercises. At a meeting with Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze he declared it had been “clearly stated that Georgia will become a member of NATO” and “We will continue working together to prepare for Georgia’s NATO membership,” which was first mooted in 2008 but somehow has never come about.
Non-US NATO military spending totals $264 billion a year, four times that of Russia, and the US will splurge $750 billion next year, so Georgia’s 37,000 military personnel, ten Su-25 combat aircraft and military budget of $380 million are not going to make much of a contribution to NATO, but that’s not the point. What the US-NATO grouping wants is to deploy its armed forces even closer to Russia than at present. When Georgia joins, there will be an opportunity to base tanks, aircraft and missiles right up against the Russian border, as in the Baltic states.
The most interesting observation about Georgia by Radio Free Europe in its account of the Stoltenberg visit was that “The country of some 3.7 million people fought a brief war with Russia in August 2008, and Moscow’s continued military presence on the country’s territory adds to tensions in the region.”
It is never mentioned by the Pentagon, Brussels or the Western media that the “brief war” was entirely the fault of Georgia. Nor is it admitted that if Russia had wished to do so, it could have swept through and occupied the whole of Georgia in a few days without interference by NATO or anyone else.
The European Union decided to conduct an inquiry into the conflict, and in 2009 produced a report which, deep down in its 1,000 pages, states that Georgia initiated the war. This was not at all what the Western world wanted to be told, and the paper is full of observations intended to disguise or excuse Georgia’s military antics. The UK’s Independent online newspaper reported that “The first authoritative study of the war over South Ossetia has concluded that Georgia started the conflict with Russia with an attack that was in violation of international law,” but there are very few people in the Western Establishment who will admit that Georgia was to blame, and they steadfastly support Georgia’s foolhardy aggression.
The EU noted that “There were reportedly more than a hundred US military advisers in the Georgian armed forces when the conflict erupted in August 2008, and an even larger number of US specialists and advisors are thought to have been active in different branches of the Georgian power structures and administration. Considerable military support in terms of equipment and to some extent training was provided by a number of other countries led by Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Israel.” In other words, Georgia was considered a prime ally because it opposed Russia, and the US and its allies helped it prepare for its futile attack.
This is not surprising, given the speech by President George W Bush in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, in May 2005. The man who ordered the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 was eloquent about Georgia’s military contribution to these disastrous conflicts, and observed that “last year, when terrorist violence in Iraq was escalating, Georgia showed her courage. You increased your troop commitment in Iraq fivefold. The Iraqi people are grateful and so are your American and coalition allies.” Indeed Washington is so grateful to the Georgian government for contributing to its wars (which involved the needless deaths of 32 Georgian soldiers in Afghanistan and five in Iraq), it provides generous aid packages, both civil and military.
A US Congressional Research Service Report of April 2019 notes that in this financial year Congress approved $89 million in civil aid and that in 2018 military aid was $40 million. These amounts don’t seem much at first glance, especially when compared to the mega-billions doled out to Afghanistan, Israel and Iraq — but given that its population is only 3.7 million, Georgia is doing very nicely.
In June 2018, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs said US policy is to “check Russian aggression,” including by “building up the means of self-defence for those states most directly threatened by Russia militarily: Ukraine and Georgia,” which repay US financial patronage not only by sacrificing their soldiers in Washington’s wars (18 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in Iraq), but in more intriguing ways, including in UN forums.
For obvious reasons it has long been thought by most countries that there should be international agreement to ban weapons in space, and a Russian-Chinese draft treaty proposing such legislation was submitted to the UN in February 2008. Washington refused to consider it, and when an amended version was presented at the UN’s First Committee in 2015 it was voted against by the US — along with its well-paid puppets, Israel, Georgia and Ukraine.
The US-NATO alliance is determined to encircle Russia more tightly, and Georgia wants to help it do so. Such provocative cooperation in these endeavours heightens tension between Georgia and Russia, which in the eyes of the western media serves to justify yet more NATO expansion. It is reminiscent of the 1930 song whose last verse is “Whoa, Georgia, Georgia, No peace, no peace I find; Just this old sweet song, Keeps Georgia on my mind…”
Twenty Years Since NATO Massacred 16 Employees of Serbian State Television
By Grey Carter | Big ‘N’ Mighty Nose | April 23, 2019
Today marks 16 years since US-led NATO coalition struck Serbian state television – Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS), murdering 16 of its employees. There was 16 employees and staff who were brutally massacred one night. Someone somewhere decided that those people had to die. Nineteen more were wounded.
In mid-April, NATO Air Commander, David Wilby, announced that NATO was sick of the Serb ‘propaganda’ televised to every household and warned that unless Serb Television broadcast three hours of US programming in the daytime and another three hours in the evening, the TV station would be blown-up. Even pro-war TV reporters phrased the announcement as an outlandish question. The idea didn’t go over. When Belgrade offered to accept the six hours in exchange for six minutes of Yugoslav news on Western networks, NATO backtracked, saying it had only meant it would bomb transmitters also used for military communications. NATO also explicitly assured the International Federation of Journalists it would not target media workers.5 Even so, against the wishes of other NATO leaders, General Wesley Clark gave orders to bomb.
NATO attack on Serbian Radio-television which took 16 lives.
In the early morning hours of April 23, as RTS was airing a taped American interview with President Milosevic and former Pentagon official turned KHOU-TV defence analysts, Ron Hatchett, there was a thunderous explosion as cruise missiles slammed into the building causing a mile-high cloud of dust.
What had been the four-story headquarters of Serbian TV was turned into a 15-foot pile of cement, plastic, iron, and the dead and wounded. Among the dead were two men hanging upside-down from the wreckage. A young woman technician was burned alive in the make-up room.
A young man could only be extracted from the tons of wreckage by amputating both of his legs. He died.
Thirteen other technicians and secretaries working the night shift were killed in their studios and taping rooms, or died in the hospital. At dawn, a group of several hundred Yugoslav citizens stood silently bearing witness in front of the smouldering wreckage, at a loss for words.
Six hours later the U.K. Secretary of State for International Development, Clare Short, said RTS was a “legitimate target” a “propaganda machine” and “causing untold suffering to the people of Kosovo”. In England Tony Blair said the attack was “entirely justified,” ( Serb TV station was a legitimate target, Guardian, 24 April 1999 issue), and went on to assert that television is part of the apparatus which keeps a political leader in power, so camera operators, make-up ladies and janitors are therefore legitimate targets.
NATO terrorist attack on Radio-television of Serbia, April 1999.
RTS broadcasts had included a patriotic programme, showing Yugoslav soldiers defending their country, President Milosevic meeting Russian envoys and the Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, and others.
For artistic expression, they showed computer animations of the NATO cross logo turning into a swastika, and Madeleine Albright growing Dracula teeth in front of a burning building.
But the station also broadcast to the world dramatic images of destruction caused by the NATO bombing and gave credible estimates of civilian casualties. RTS scooped the world press when it disclosed that a NATO aircraft had killed scores of Albanian refugees in a bombing attack.
After RTS broadcast the scenes of the civilian carnage, NATO flip-flopped through the next 24-hour news cycle. NATO’s first response was: “We didn’t do it, the Serbs did it.” That changed to “we did bomb the column, but the Serbs killed the refugees.” Again lies.
Finally, NATO accepted fault and apologized. Still, NATO’s glib cockney spokesman, Jamie Shea, pushed the edges of Orwellian doublespeak when he declared that the pilot had “dropped his bombs (on the Albanian column) in good faith.”
Later, NATO played an audio-tape supposedly of the pilot in question. But it turned out that the recorded pilot was involved in a completely different operation. The real tape was withheld.
Contrary to Pentagon reports, NATO programming could be seen on 21st UHF channel throughout the northern Serbia and Belgrade area. Other radio and TV stations which had carried some NATO broadcasts were housed in the Business Centre USCE, which NATO destroyed on April 22.
The content of RTS broadcasts also was more complicated than NATO has asserted.
It’s important to stress that RTS was a center of cultural identity for the Serb nation. With the destruction of RTS headquarters, thousands of tapes and films have now been crushed to rubble, videos that once helped tell the Serbs and their children who they are — and provide some small comfort in their difficult lives.
On April 23, 1999, with permission of World leaders, Jelica Munitlak (28) make-up artist, Ksenija Bankovic (28) video mixer, Darko Stiomenovski (26) Technician in exchange, Nebojsa Stojanovic (27) and Branislav Jovanovic (50) TV technicians, Dragorad Dragojevic (27), Dejan Markovic (39) and Milan Joksimovic (47) security guards, Dragan Tasic (31) electrician, Aleksandar Deletic (31) cameraman, Slavisa Stevanovic (32) and Ivan Stukalo (34) technicians, Sinisa Medic (32) Programme designer, Milan Jankovic (59) technician, Tomislav Mitrovic (61)Programme Director and Slobodan Jontic (54) technician have been killed, at 2:06 a.m.
Memory eternal.
source:
http://serbiasos.blogspot.com/2013/04/bombing-of-rts-freedom-of-expression.html
http://inserbia.info/today/2014/04/anniversary-of-nato-bombing-of-the-radio-television-of-serbia/
The Strategy of Controlled Chaos
By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research* | April 18, 2019
Everyone against everyone else – this is the media image of chaos which is spreading across the Southern shores of the Mediterranean, from Libya to Syria. It is a situation before which even Washington seems powerless. But in reality, Washington is not the sorcerer’s apprentice unable to control the forces now in motion. It is the central motor of a strategy – the strategy of chaos – which, by demolishing entire States, is provoking a chain reaction of conflicts which can be used in the manner of the ancient method of “divide and rule”.
Emerging victorious from the Cold War in 1991, the USA self-appointed themselves as “the only State with power, reach, and influence in all dimensions – political, economic and military – which are truly global”, and proposed to “prevent any hostile power from dominating any region – Western Europe, Eastern Asia, the territories of the ex-Soviet Union, and South-Western Asia (the Middle East) – whose resources could be enough to generate a world power”.
Since then, the United States, with NATO under their command, have fragmented or destroyed by war, one by one, the states they considered to represent an obstacle to their plan for world domination – Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and others – while still others are in their sights (among which are Iran and Venezuela).
In the same strategy came the coup d’État in Ukraine under the direction of the USA and NATO, in order to provoke a new Cold War in Europe intended to isolate Russia and reinforce the influence of the United States in Europe.
While we concentrate politico-media attention on the fighting in Libya, we leave in the shadows the increasingly threatening scenario of NATO’s escalation against Russia. The meeting of the 29 Ministers for Foreign Affairs, convened in Washington on 4 April to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Alliance, reaffirmed, without any proof, that “Russia violated the FNI Treaty by deploying new missiles with a nuclear capacity in Europe”.
One week later, on 11 April, NATO announced that the “update” of the US Aegis “anti-missile defence system”, based at Deveselu in Romania, would be implemented this summer, assuring that it would “not add any offensive capacity to the system”.
On the contrary, this system, installed in Romania and Poland, as well as on board ships, is able to launch not only interceptor missiles, but also nuclear missiles. Moscow issued a warning – if the USA were to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe, Russia would deploy – on its own territory – similar missiles pointed at European bases.
Consequently, NATO’s spending for « defence » has skyrocketed – the military budgets of European allies and those of Canada will rise to 100 billion dollars in 2020.
The Ministers for Foreign Affairs, united in Washington on 4 April, agreed in particular to “face up to Russia’s aggressive actions in the Black Sea”, by establishing “new measures of support for our close partners, Georgia and Ukraine”.
The following day, dozens of warships and fighter-bombers from the United States, Canada, Greece, Holland, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria began a NATO aero-naval war exercise in the Black Sea at the limit of Russian territorial waters, using the ports of Odessa (Ukraine) and Poti (Georgia).
Simultaneously, more than 50 fighter-bombers from the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Holland, taking off from a Dutch airbase and refuelling in flight, practised “offensive aerial missions of attack against earth-based or sea-based objectives”. Italian Eurofighter fighter-bombers were once again sent by NATO to patrol the Baltic region to counter the “threat” of Russian warplanes.
The situation is increasingly tense and can explode (or be exploded) at any moment, dragging us down into a chaos much worse that of Libya.
Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
* This article was originally published on Il Manifesto. Translated by Pete Kimberley.
‘Security risk & lawbreaker’: German MP says 70yo NATO should retire
RT | April 5, 2019
German lawmaker Alexander Neu lambasted NATO for conducting aggressive wars and raking up defense spending, suggesting Germany should quit its military command, and the bloc be dissolved altogether.
NATO’s 70th birthday is “not a reason to celebrate, but rather an occasion to finally rethink it, before it’s too late,” Neu wrote in Die Freiheitsliebe blog on Thursday.
The lawmaker from the opposition Left Party slammed the US-led military bloc as an organization that poses “significant security risk to the world” and “systematically violates international law.”
NATO revealed its true colors when it waged an “aggressive war” against Yugoslavia without the UN’s approval, and carried out numerous interventions, which claimed the lives of “countless victims,” Neu argued.
He pointed out that last year NATO’s member states spent more than $1 trillion on defense, which is far more than the defense budgets of its rivals, China and Russia, combined.
“The imperialist competition and the fear of losing economic and ideological supremacy drive NATO towards more rearmament and confrontation.”
In order to avoid global escalation, the lawmaker proposed that Germany should leave the alliance’s “military structures,” and then NATO itself should be dissolved and replaced by a new “collective security system,” which would include Russia.
Berlin’s contribution to NATO has caused a rift with Washington in recent years, as President Donald Trump repeatedly accused Germany, along with other EU nations, of not spending its “fair share” on the bloc’s collective security. German officials rebuked the criticism, but admitted the country won’t reach NATO’s spending target until 2024.
Founded in 1949, NATO was primarily seen as a bulwark against the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War. The alliance continued its existence after the Soviet Union collapsed, and expanded eastwards, despite vehement protests from Moscow.
US Ambassador to NATO: We Will Guarantee Passage of Ukrainian Warships Through Crimea Waters
If you want a war with Russia, that’s how you start one
By Marko Marjanović | Check Point Asia | April 4, 2019
The not-very-smart lady who last October put Russians “on notice” that US was looking at “taking out” Russian intermediate-range missiles in a pre-emptive strike, is at it again. This time she is promising NATO will guarantee Ukrainian Navy ships can pass through the Kerch Strait between mainland Russia and Crimea, which since 2014 Russia considers along with Crimea its own territory.
It is as much as saying NATO will guarantee Ukrainian army can return to Crimea. There isn’t any doubt either than Hutchinson is talking about Ukrainian warships (Russians do not interfere with the passage of merchant ships) seeing she says this is specifically in response to the November crisis where Russians prevented Ukrainian Navy vessels from making the passage:
“I think that we have been working on a package to present to the foreign ministers, and it is a package that beefs up the surveillance, both air surveillance as well as more of the NATO country ships going into the Black Sea to assure that there is safe passage from Ukrainian vessels through the Kerch Straits, the Sea of Azov,” she said.
The US representative commented that at present “more attention is needed to guarantee that these waters are liberated” and that the countries in the region are “free from Russian interference”.
“Russia has been deploying defensive weapons in Crimea, but Crimea is part of Ukraine,” Hutchison remarked.
“It is very important that the inhabitants of Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Georgia feel at home in the Black Sea zone, both in the water and on land,” she said, adding that the package of measures is a response to November’s Kerch Strait incident.
“It is unacceptable that Ukrainian sailors are being held in prison in Moscow. We must ensure that we have the ability to restrain Russia’s aggression,” she remarked.
The truth is that NATO can guarantee no such thing, if the Kiev government organizes another attempt to force the entry without filing a request with the Russians, the Russians will fire once again. But it is reckless to talk as if NATO intends to organize or back such an attempt.
The Russian reaction was sheer disbelief somebody could be so saying something so stupid and inflammatory:
“In a negative light,” he [Putin’s spokesman Peskov] said when asked how Kremlin viewed such statements. “We do not understand what that means.”
It is worrying that Americans have some many people in important positions who do not comprehend the consequences of what they are proposing.
Turkey Says US Failed to Report True Content of Pompeo Talk
Al-Manar | April 4, 2019
Turkey on Thursday accused the US State Department of making false claims after a meeting between top US and Turkish diplomats to discuss tense ties between the NATO allies.
Washington and Ankara are at odds over issues including US support for a Syrian Kurdish militia and Turkey’s purchase of a Russian missile system over US objections.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held talks on Wednesday during the Turkish official’s visit to Washington as part of 70th anniversary celebrations of the NATO alliance.
The US State Department said Pompeo had warned Ankara of “devastating consequences” if Turkey launches an offensive in Syria and urged the “swift resolution” of legal cases involving US citizens and US mission employees under investigation in Turkey.
Pompeo also pressed Cavusoglu about Turkey’s plans to buy the S-400 missile defense system from Russia, which Washington has warned could put Ankara at risk of US sanctions, the State Department said in a statement.
But Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said on Thursday that the readout “not only fails to reflect the content of the meeting, but also contains matters that were not even raised during said meeting”.
It was not clear what “matters” Aksoy was referring to in his statement and foreign ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.
Aksoy said similar problems had arisen after previous talks, and urged statements to be prepared with “greater care”.
The US Idea the Russians Need Turkey to Figure Out How to Shoot Down a F-35 Is Beyond Silly
By Andrei Martyanov | Reminiscence of the Future | April 1, 2019
US halts deliveries of F-35 “equipment” to Turkey over S-400 contract. This is how F-35 soap saga is justified:
The United States and other NATO allies that own F-35s fear the radar on the Russian S-400 missile system will learn how to spot and track the jet, making it less able to evade Russian weapons in the future.
In an attempt to persuade Turkey to drop its plans to buy the S-400, the United States offered the pricier American-made Patriot anti-missile system in a discounted deal that expired at the end of March.
Turkey has shown interest in the Patriot system, but not at the expense of abandoning the S-400.
There is one problem, actually two, with this “justification”. I’ll start with a lesser one.
1. Patriot is not a peer to S-400. Nothing personal, but US air defense systems are not “quite there” despite massive propaganda campaigns extolling their combat virtues. Turkey knows this. Turks have a good idea about how its own Air Force was grounded after shooting down Russian Su-24 in November 2015, and who and what actually provided targeting to Syrian air defenses on April 13, 2018 against Trump’s “very smart missiles”. Plus, in general, Russian record in this field speaks for itself.
2. The most laughable in all that, however, is the fact that people still use this beaten to death argument about Turkey magically learning about how to shoot down allegedly super-pooper-duper invisible F-35 and then, of course, giving desperate Russians this information.
Well, I have some news for those people who still reside in this bubble–to shoot down F-35 one has to have two different bands radar, good sensor-fusion algorithms and decent signal processing protocols and voila’. S-300 PMU2 Favorit can do this, certainly S-400, and its inevitably coming iterations for which there is literally a line of customers, can.
In general, this whole BS about “stealth” should end at some point of time–it was a good propaganda while it lasted. Reality is, with modern processing power and radar design F-35 is not survivable against modern cutting edge air-defense and air-forces.
I can totally understand the irritation Washington feels about this whole situation, after all Turkey is a key NATO member with an actual army, and seeing a NATO member going for such a weapon systems from Washington’s prime time arch enemy–this is a no-no. But then comes this question: so, the United States will stop (will it?) F-35 and associated technology deliveries to Turkey, then what?
Do we really want to open this can of worms? Turks are not idiots, by far–they can calculate and while Erdogan might still do rapid 180 degrees maneuver, he also can not fail to consider the fact that instead of F-35 Turkey may get her hands on, say, some decent version of Su-35. Possible? Possible! How probable? I don’t know. But Obama should have thought twice when unleashing, or pretending that he didn’t know, a coup against Erdogan in 2016. Or, for that matter, a bloody overthrow of government in Ukraine in 2014. But current American elites have no concept of own actions having consequences.
Meanwhile India also signed $5 billion contact for S-400, also against the background of Washington’s pressure not to buy things from those pesky Russians. But behind all those maneuvers one fact remains unchanged and I was writing about this for years–Russian weapons systems are created to kill and do that very effectively. Unlike American military-industrial complex Russian military-industrial complex is not jobs program or corporate welfare system, it never was. Allow me to quote myself:
For a nation with such a military history as Russia’s the issue of military technology is an issue of survival. As such, weapons in Russia are sacralized because behind them are generations of Russians who shed blood to make those weapons what they are.
They have become a part of the culture to such a degree that commercial considerations take a very distant second place to a main purpose of these weapons—to actually defend the nation.
This is absolutely not the case in the United States, with some exception for its Navy, with Americans having no knowledge or recollection of what real war is and what instruments forfighting and winning it are needed. Those things cannot be paid for in money, they are paid for in blood.
I guess this should help explain why Russia is so successful on the international market with her weapons. They are simply good, in fact, the best and people know that.
US, Israel punish Turkey’s Erdogan
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | April 2, 2019
“Turkey is a global “swing state.” It has a large and growing economy, a strategic location, a democratic government, and mixed views about prevailing international arrangements. Like the other three global swing states — Brazil, India, and Indonesia — Turkey’s choices will influence whether today’s international order evolves and endures or fragments and fails.”
The above passage is reproduced from a policy brief titled Turkey: A Global Swing State by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the American think tank. Indeed, from the US perspective, several fault lines in regional politics are affected by Turkish policies. At least half a dozen major templates can be readily identified: Syrian conflict, Kurdish autonomy, Palestinian problem and Israel’s security, US sanctions against Russia and Iran, Turkey’s entente with Russia, Qatar, Iran, etc., NATO presence in the Black Sea and Mediterranean and the alliance’s base in Incirlik and so on.
It is no big secret that the US and its European allies and Israel view Turkish President Recep Erdogan’s regional policies with growing disquiet. Erdogan’s independent foreign policies weaken western regional strategies and his support for Hamas (and his visceral dislike of Netanyahu) isolates Israel in the region.
On the other hand, the US’ containment strategies against Russia and Iran are undermined by Erdogan’s policies. The Turkish-Russian-Iranian troika created new facts on the ground in Syria and rendered untenable the US military presence in Syria. Turkey frontally challenges the US’ alliance with Syrian Kurds. The deepening Turkish-Russian partnership challenges the cohesion of NATO. The so-called Middle Eastern Entente between Turkey, Qatar and Iran creates much-needed strategic depth for Tehran.
Suffice to say, Erdogan has become a thorn in the flesh for the US and Israel. All this goes to explain the unusually high level of western interest in Turkey’s local elections, which concluded on Sunday. The big question is how far the election results affect Erdogan’s hold on power. Put differently, do the election results show any signs of this charismatic politician losing his grip?
The turnout of voters has been appreciably high — 84.67%. Overall, AK Party (Erdogan’s party) and its ultra-nationalist ally MHP (under the banner People’s Alliance) polled 51.62% votes as against the secular ‘Kemalist’ and liberal opposition (known as National Alliance) which secured 37.56% votes.
The AKP is leading the race securing 16 metropolitan municipalities (out of 30) and taken control of 24 cities, with the main opposition winning in 10 municipalities. But the opposition has wrested control of Ankara and may have scraped through in Istanbul, the country’s main centre of business and industry.
On the whole, there has been no significant shift in the established pattern of social and political polarisation — the southern (Mediterranean) and western (Aegean) provinces supporting the opposition parties with liberal, ‘westernist’, secular outlook, while the Islamist AK Party retains its vast power base in the deeply conservative Anatolian heartland.
Simply put, the AK Party emerges as the winner for the 15th consecutive election under Erdogan’s stewardship. Erdogan said in an address to the nation, “There will be no elections for four and a half years. What will we do? We will focus on national and international issues, and hopefully raise our country above the level of our contemporaries.” Erdogan prioritised the strengthening of the economy, development and job creation.
A pall of gloom would have descended on the western capitals as the realisation sinks in that Erdogan will be around as Turkey’s helmsman for the foreseeable future. Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections are due only in 2023.
It is a sign of the times that Russian President Vladimir Putin telephoned Erdogan on Monday to congratulate him. Erdogan is due to travel to Russia next week to co-chair with Putin the eighth meeting of the High-Level Russian-Turkish Cooperation Council scheduled for April 8 in Moscow.
Erdogan’s meeting with Putin will be crucial as both sides are conscious that stormy days lie ahead in Turkish-American relations. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is due to travel to the US even as Washington is ratcheting up pressure on Ankara to pull out of the S-400 missile deal with Russia and to comply with the US sanctions on Iran.
Things may come to a head between the two NATO allies in the coming weeks since Russia is due to deliver to Turkey in July the first batch of the missile system. Turkey is buying four batteries of the S-400 air defence system for $2.5 billion.
On Thursday, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the US senate to block the transfer of F-35 stealth fighter jets to Turkey unless Ankara scrapped the S-400 deal. The US is also reportedly considering removing Ankara from the joint production program on F-35s. But the Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu reiterated on Friday that Ankara will go ahead with the missile deal with Russia. He scotched the rumours that Ankara might resell the missiles to a third country.
More importantly, last Tuesday, the US introduced sanctions on 25 individuals and firms on grounds of violation of sanctions on Iran, including firms and persons based in Turkey. On Wednesday, Sigal Mandelker, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence in the US Treasury, called on Turkey to strictly observe the sanctions against Iran.
Without doubt, the Israeli lobby in Washington is pulling all stops to punish Erdogan. His support for Iran and Hamas infuriate Israel. Erdogan said last week that Turkey will never accept Israel’s illegal occupation of Golan Heights and intends to raise the issue in the UN. The US media which is heavily under Jewish influence has been harshly critical of Erdogan. Sunday’s election results are being displayed as ‘setback’ for Erdogan. Given the Jewish influence on Wall Street, the game plan would be to create difficulties for the Turkish economy so that mass discontent rises to threaten Erdogan’s popularity.
At such a sensitive juncture when an escalation of tension in ties between Ankara and Washington looks possible in the days ahead and Turkey is hard-pressed to strike a balance between the US and Moscow, the results of the local elections on Sunday would relieve the pressure on Erdogan. But the loss of control of Ankara and Istanbul creates new headaches.
The head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahçeli, ally and coalition partner of Erdogan, said on Monday that “external forces seeking to implement shady machinations over Turkey have failed” in the local elections. Bahceli said that the “economic hitmen, currency gangs, terrorist groups and intentions” lost hope thanks to the will of the nation and “got the answer they deserved.”
However, looking ahead, Bahceli added, “Elections are now past and Turkey has replenished its hope. It is of crucial importance to focus on worsening social and economic issues along with international challenges.”
NATO propaganda promotes war, military spending
Third in a four-part series on the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
By Yves Engler · April 1, 2019
The first two installments of the series showed how NATO was set up to blunt the European left and to justify European/North American dominance across the globe. Recently, the alliance has intensified pressure on Canada to increase spending on the military and participate in more wars.
As its Cold War pretext fades further from view, NATO has become more belligerent. In 1999 Canadian fighter jets dropped 530 bombs in NATO’s illegal 78-day bombing of Serbia. During the 2000s tens of thousands of Canadian troops fought in a NATO war in Afghanistan. In 2011 a Canadian general led NATO’s attack on Libya in which seven CF-18 fighter jets and two Canadian naval vessels participated.
In a dangerous game of brinksmanship, NATO has massed troops and fighter jets on Russia’s border. Five hundred Canadian troops lead an alliance mission in Latvia while the US, Britain and Germany head missions in Poland, Lithuania and Estonia. Over the past decade Canadian naval vessels have almost constantly engaged in NATO patrols in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean.
In addition to spurring deployments and war, militarists use the alliance to boost socially and ecologically damaging military spending. “Canada’s defence spending questioned at NATO parliamentary meeting”, noted a November CBC headline while a National Post editorial bemoaned “Canada’s continuing failure to honour our pledge to NATO allies to spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence.” In 2006 NATO countries adopted a pledge to put 2% of economic output into their military.
NATO has also been used to push weapons procurement. Calling for expanding the jet fleet, senior military officials told the Globe and Mail in 2017 that “Canada’s fighter fleet is not big enough to meet its NORAD and NATO obligations at the same time.” In a history of the first century of the navy Marc Milner describes a series of reports in the mid-1960s concluding that the Royal Canadian Navy was “too small to meet Canada’s NATO obligations” and should be expanded “to meet NATO and North American commitments.”
NATO has also been invoked to justify arming the US war machine. In 1967 the Prime Minister responded to calls by opponents of the war in Vietnam to end the Defence Production Sharing Agreement, the arrangement under which Canada sold the US weapons, with the claim that to do so would imperil NATO. Lester Pearson claimed this “would be interpreted as a notice of withdrawal on our part from continental defense and even from the collective defence arrangements of the Atlantic alliance.”
In 2017 the Justin Trudeau government “hid behind Canada’s NATO membership”, according to NDP foreign critic Hélène Laverdière, when it opposed international efforts to ban nuclear weapons. At a time when he made a big display about “suffocating” the (nuclear) arms race Pierre Trudeau justified nuclear tipped cruise missiles testing in Canada. In 1983 the Prime Minister said, “having declared our support for the two track strategy, Canada should bear its fair share of the burden which that policy imposes on the NATO alliance.”
NATO is a nuclear weapons club. These monstrous bombs have been “a fundamental component” of the alliance’s military planning. Through NATO Canada has effectively committed to fighting a nuclear war if any country breached its boundaries. Additionally, the alliance does not restrict its members from using nuclear weapons first.
NATO supports various militarist organizations in this country and operates a public diplomacy division. Founded in 1966 the NATO Association of Canada, formerly Atlantic Council of Canada, promotes the alliance. With an office in Toronto its staff and interns organize public events and publish different materials. A decade older than the NATO Association of Canada, the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association seeks “to increase knowledge of the concerns of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly among parliamentarians.”
A number of Canadian organizations receive NATO’s largess. Conference of Defense Associations conferences in Ottawa have received support from NATO while the Canadian Global Affairs Institute has held numerous joint symposiums with NATO. The annual Halifax International Security Forum, which brings together hundreds of academics and policymakers, is sponsored by NATO. In the late 1980s the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies had “agreements with NATO’s Information Service to conduct a national/regional speakers tour.”
In other words NATO spends money (which ultimately come from our taxes) to convince Canadians that wars and military spending are good for us.
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From the Archives
Registered Israeli foreign agent driving contrived campus antisemitism crisis
By Wyatt Reed | The Grayzone | December 17, 2023
Lawsuits accusing top US universities of harboring antisemitism all originate from one source: a corporate law firm that fielded the pro-settler ex-US ambassador to Israel, and which was registered as a foreign agent of an Israeli principal as recently as 2021.
The firm now represents professional Israel lobby activists posing as victimized “Jewish students” and seeking to crush the free speech rights of Palestine solidarity activists. … continue
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