NATO As Global Cop Assaults Democracy
As NATO troops head into the former Yugoslavia again, it's time to take
another look at the role NATO plays in the world. Vancouver-based End the
Arms Race has prepared a list of reasons to oppose NATO.
NATO is a creature of the Cold War and should be abolished, not expanded.
It is uncertain how the Russians will respond. Following the meeting between
Presidents Bush and Putin, the Russians indicated they would be willing to
negotiate a new agreement on missile defenses. However, the Bush
Administration indicated that it had no interest in revising the treaty or
negotiating a new formal agreement. Instead, the Administration is seeking
to continue high-level consultations with Russia through which they hope to
achieve informal agreement that both countries will simply withdraw from the
treaty.
NATO's official military doctrine reserves for itself the right to use
nuclear weapons despite the fact that in 1996 the World Court made such use,
or threat, illegal. The use of nuclear weapons contravenes International
humanitarian law because civilian deaths would be massive and
indiscriminate. NATO's nuclear weapons also pose the risk of environmental
catastrophe, including the global holocaust of "nuclear winter." NATO's
nuclear weapons policy also contravenes the Nonproliferation Treaty (to
which all NATO members are signatories) that requires all states to press
quickly to abolish nuclear weapons. NATO member states (US, UK and France)
now have more than 9,000 nuclear warheads in active service, about 60% of
the world's nuclear arsenal. These three NATO states have committed some of
their nuclear weapons to NATO for its use in war. NATO itself maintains
between 60 and 200 nuclear weapons at airbases in Western Europe. NATO's
nuclear weapons and the threat of their use are a means of coercion and
intimidation, especially against states that do not possess these weapons.
NATO's powerful core members (the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Holland,
Belgium and Spain) have a long history of controlling vast empires. Former
colonies of these NATO countries --- today's Third World --- still suffer from
tragic economic inequalities resulting from hundreds of years of imperialism
imposed by nations that are now members of NATO. Transnational corporations
controlled by economic interests in NATO countries continue to dominate
these former colonies under a neoliberal economic system now labeled
"corporate globalization."
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, about 80%
of the world's total military equipment was produced by NATO members in
1996. The NATO members that are among the world's top ten military producers
are the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Canada. The U.S., U.K.
and France alone contributed about 70% of world's total arms production for
that year.
After the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, NATO became
increasingly irrelevant and needed a reason for its continued existence. So
it escalated its efforts to foment ethnic wars in the Balkans in order to
create excuses for its own military interventions in the region. NATO's
interventions --- so-called "humanitarian wars" --- were then sold to the public
as a means of settling conflicts between ethnic groups. NATO's real purpose
is to expand the colonial spheres of influence of its member states and
their corporate allies.
NATO waged a war of aggression against Yugoslavia that was illegal under its
own Charter and various international laws. NATO forces used 1,200 warplanes
and helicopters to fly 35,000 combat missions against Yugoslavia. It dropped
20,000 bombs and missiles containing 80,000 tons of explosives on that
country. Contrary to international law, NATO targeted civilian
infrastructure, including over 1,000 targets of no military significance,
such as: schools, hospitals, farms, bridges, roads, railways, waterlines,
media stations, historic and cultural monuments, museums, factories, oil
refineries and petrochemical plants. NATO's illegal bombing campaign
severely impacted the health of Yugoslavia's civilian population. Thousands
of civilians were killed, at least 6,000 were injured and countless others,
especially children, suffered severe psychological trauma. According to the
UN Environmental Program, NATO's bombing campaign triggered an ecological
catastrophe in Yugoslavia and the surrounding region. In its war against
Yugoslavia, NATO used weapons that are prohibited by the Hague and Geneva
Conventions and the Nuremburg Charter, such as depleted uranium missiles
that are radioactive; highly toxic weapons with long-term, life-threatening
health and environmental consequences, and anti-personnel cluster bombs
designed to kill and maim, that contravene the "Ottawa Process on
Landmines," because many "bomblets" do not explode during initial impact.
NATO continues to stockpile these prohibited weapons for use against
civilian populations in future wars.
After its bombing of Yugoslavia, NATO refused to disarm the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) as required by United Nations resolution 1244.
Instead, NATO converted the KLA into the Kosovo Protection Force supposedly
to maintain peace and order in NATO-controlled Kosovo. Under the watchful
eyes of 40,000 NATO troops, the revamped KLA terrorists ethnically cleansed
the area of 250,000 people who were not of Albanian heritage (as well as
some ethnic Albanians loyal to Yugoslavia). During NATO's occupation, 1,300
citizens have been killed and another 1,300 have been reported missing.
Kosovo's remaining minorities have no freedom of movement, live in ghettoes
and face frequent terrorist attacks and property destruction.
NATO appointed Agim Ceku, an alleged war criminal, as commander of the
Kosovo Protection Force. Ceku, an Albanian Kosovar, led the Croatian army's
"Operation Storm" that ethnically cleansed the Serbian population from their
ancestral lands in Croatia. If the Hague were to pursue an indictment of
Ceku, and other such terrorists, it would be a major embarrassment to their
NATO bosses.
As an occupying colonial power, NATO forces helped to enforce the
cancellation of election results in Bosnia, shut down the offices and
transmission towers of media stations that were critical of NATO's presence
and seized the assets of political parties that refused to cooperate with
them.
The exploitative behavior rampant in military culture is exemplified by the
actions of NATO troops based in the Balkans. For example, NATO troops fuel
the demand for prostitution in both Bosnia and Kosovo. The women who service
NATO troops live in deplorable conditions and are frequently held against
their will by local captors. When evidence of UN or NATO involvement in this
trade has surfaced, implicated officers have been discharged and sent home
but no criminal proceedings have ever been initiated against them.
By giving military assistance to Albanian terrorists NATO has been a prime
source of destabilization in Macedonia. The London Times (June 10, 2001)
reported that NATO's appointee to the Kosovo Protection Force, Agim Ceku,
sent 800 KLA troops to Macedonia to aid the nascent Albanian insurgency
there. This June, NATO troops intervened to evacuate KLA fighters when
Macedonian forces closed in on the rebels near Aracinovo. German media
reports state that NATO's evacuation was ordered because 17 former U.S.
military personnel --- hardened by years of Balkan fighting and working for a
private U.S. mercenary group --- were among the KLA terrorists. NATO has also
used diplomatic means to pressure the Macedonian government to succumb to
Albanian demands.
NATO's aggressive policy of expansion into Eastern Europe severely threatens
international stability. With NATO's annexation of the Czech Republic,
Hungary and Poland now complete, Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia have declared an interest
in joining the NATO juggernaut. NATO has also set its sights on penetrating
even further into former Soviet spheres of influence by trying to encompass
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and the Ukraine. NATO's intention to press
beyond the former borders of the Soviet Union is dangerously confrontational
and risks provoking war with Russia.
NATO's expansion into Central and Eastern Europe is a means of integrating
the military forces within those countries under NATO (and largely U.S.)
control. As military units within NATO, the armed forces of new NATO member
states must submit to demands for standardization of military training,
weapons and other military equipment. Requirements that new members
standardize their military equipment to NATO's exacting specifications is a
tremendous boon to U.S. and European military industries that profit greatly
from these expanded export markets.
New NATO member states may also lose sovereignty over other important
aspects of their armed forces, such as the command, control, communications
and intelligence functions, which also risk being subsumed under the
auspices of NATO standardization.
The reasons for NATO's expansion eastward are largely economic. For
instance, NATO's military access and control over Eastern Europe helps
Western European corporations to secure strategic energy resources such as
oil from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. The U.S. and Western European
corporations will greatly benefit from NATO's control of the oil corridor
through the Caucasus mountains. NATO wants its troops to patrol this
pipeline and to dominate the Armenian/Russian route to the Caspian Sea. The
Caucasus also link the Adriatic-Ceyhan-Baku pipeline with oil-rich countries
even farther east, in the former Soviet Central Asia republics of Kazakhstan
and Uzbekistan. Billions of dollars in oil may someday flow through these
corridors to Western Europe for the benefit of Western-based oil companies.
NATO's growth is not only a provocation to Russia, it also threatens the
security of China and other Asian states that may respond in kind by
increasing their military spending, thus diverting resources from the
essential needs of their citizens. NATO's expansion may eventually provoke
an anti-NATO alliance in Asia, further destabilizing peace and leading to
possible future wars.
As part of the "NATO Defence Capabilities Initiative," NATO member states
have committed themselves to increase their military abilities for "power
projection, mobility and increased interoperability." This will require
significant additional military expenditures. European NATO countries have
already increased their expenditures for military equipment by 11% in real
terms since 1995. Meanwhile, military budgets in the U.S. and Canada have
also increased over the past two years. The military budgets of NATO
countries amounted to about 60% of the world's total military spending
(US$798 billion) for the year 2000. Rather than focusing on such genuinely
humanitarian priorities as providing food, housing, health care, education,
environmental protection and public transportation for their populations and
the rest of the world, NATO is intent on increasing their military budgets
for future interventions even farther afield.
The testing and training conducted by NATO to prepare for war, also has
numerous negative impacts on people and the environment. NATO's war
preparations include military exercises, the training of pilots and the
testing of weapons and warplanes. For instance, low level flight training
areas and bombing ranges in Nitassinan threaten the traditional lifestyle of
many in the Innu Nation. Their unceded territory in Quebec and Labrador is
being turned into a military wasteland by NATO test flights. NATO nations
also carry out dangerous bombing practices on Vieques Island, off Puerto
Rico.
In the late 1940s-early 1950s, at the bidding of the CIA, NATO helped to set
up secret paramilitary, anti-communist cells in at least 16 European states.
Originally called Operation "Stay Behind," this network of guerrilla armies
was created to fight behind the lines in case of a Soviet invasion. It was
codified under the umbrella of the Clandestine Co-ordinating Committee of
the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (which became NATO). These
clandestine armies were condemned by the European Union in a resolution
(Dec. 22, 1990) that blamed the CIA and NATO for their 40-year role in
overseeing this covert operation. Widely known by the code name for the
Italian campaign (i.e., "Operation Gladio") these organizations, which the
EU feared may still have been operating in 1990, were accused of illegal
interference in political affairs, conducting terrorist attacks,
jeopardizing democratic structures and other serious crimes.
Key NATO representatives have interfered with internal electoral/political
developments in Europe. Although recent elections in Albania were fraught
with irregularities and fraud (ballot box stuffing, ghost voters, selective
disenfranchisement) NATO General Secretary George Robertson pronounced the
election fair and legitimate. Earlier this year, another NATO spokesperson
openly threatened that if the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (the party
of former premier Vladimir Meciar) entered a coalition government, Slovakia
would not be welcomed into NATO or allowed early European Union membership.
Back to Peace Talk Index, Autumn, 2001