NATO - Global Terror
Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan (left) and Barack Obama, President of the
United States (right) shake hands during the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago.
On May 19th - 21st 2012, Presidents and Prime Ministers from 61 countries and the leaders of the United Nations (UN), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and European Union (EU) gathered in Chicago for the NATO Summit. In our previous issue (volume 10.3) we described the conflicts between the legion of police standing guard over the NATO Summit and those who were protesting it. This article will address the underlying issues that have lead to these conflicts. We ask that the reader, to? exercise an open mind to what will be presented and to avoid having an emotional response to it. Keep in mind this is a report based as much as possible on facts and the analysis of facts and is not intended to denigrate any of our fellow human beings. We only wish to inspire humanity to honestly work towards a better world for all living beings.
NATO is a political and military alliance comprised of 28 countries including most of Europe, the United States, Canada and Turkey. This alliance was formed following World War 2 in 1949 at the beginning of the “Cold War” under the perceived threat from Russia and the USSR. The ideals promoted by NATO; freedom, democracy, peace, security, etc. seem like beneficial and worthy goals. However, as Master Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig always used to say, people can tell you whatever they want about themselves, but if we want to know the truth, all we have to do is look behind them at their history. Let us take a look behind some of the current activities of NATO. In the statements published during this year’s summit in Chicago, many of those activities were mentioned. Let’s look at some of them.
As mentioned above, heads of state from 61 countries were in attendance at the summit. Heads of state from many non-NATO countries were invited “to build new partnerships – so that NATO is truly the hub of a global security network,” according to White House Advisor Ben Rhodes. Of the non-NATO countries in attendance, Morocco was the only African country with official representation at the summit and the only country who did not send their president or prime minister. Apparently, NATO’s vision of a global network does not require the input of African leaders, nor does NATO recognize the part of the North Atlantic that borders Africa.
According to the Chicago Summit Declaration, "NATO’s door will remain open to all European democracies which share the values of our Alliance, which are willing and able to assume the responsibilities and obligations of membership."
Although the Northern Atlantic Ocean borders more of the African Coast than it does the European Coast, NATO membership is closed to African countries. This reveals the fact that more than anything, NATO represents certain groups of interest and ideologies which are then forced upon the rest of the world.
Although NATO did not include Africa in their summit, Africa is not excluded from their military or political action. One of NATO’s major activities in the last year was the support of the military rebellion in Libya. "For four decades, the Qaddafi regime ruled the Libyan people with an iron fist. Basic human rights were denied. Innocent civilians were detained, beaten and killed. And Libya’s wealth was squandered. The enormous potential of the Libyan people was held back, and terror was used as a political weapon," declared US President Barack Obama following the murder of Libyan President Moammar Gaddafi. Gaddafi has been demonized by the US media as being a dictator. Without going further into detail about Gaddafi (covered in detail in Sunnyside vol. 10.1), if the main concern of NATO is the security and protection of its members, what business do they have attacking a country that has not threatened it and then celebrating when its president is murdered in the street?
The fact that Gaddafi was president for over 40 years is the sole fact cited in the claims that he was a dictator. Serving a term of over 40 years may be in conflict with democratic values promoted by NATO but Kings and Chiefs of the world have served life terms for tens of thousands of years before democracy was invented. There is no historical proof that democratic governments are in any way better than the traditional kingships that they demonize at every opportunity. Human rights abuse, poverty, discrimination, corruption and disease are rampant in the US but we allow ourselves to be convinced that we are better off than people in other countries. If we can’t prove the superiority of democracy, then NATO’s destruction of non-democratic governments can be compared to the persecution of indigenous people by religious fanatics claiming to be destroying entire populations to serve their God and save the souls of the same people they are killing.
The truth is that whether under the disguise of democracy, Catholicism or whatever, the agenda is the same, destruction of traditional culture and world domination by the colonial system. Let’s note that the power structure that supports NATO is from the lineage of the Greco/Roman conquerors of the last 2000 years. The values that are being promoted as the justification for their warpath; peace, justice, security, righteousness or "the word of God" turn out to be whatever excuse is convincing enough to gain the support of the people holding the guns or the swords. Let’s note that the same values are ignored when it involves their own allies.
For example, let’s look at the situation in Afghanistan.
According to Ben Rhodes, "No mission is more important to NATO than our ongoing efforts to defeat al-Qaeda, and succeed in Afghanistan." The official reason for NATO’s war in Afghanistan is that it was the base of operations for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, who were supposedly behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11/2001.
Eleven years later and after the supposed murder of Osama bin Laden (who was formerly a CIA agent and whose dead body has never been seen), NATO forces are still in Afghanistan working to conquer the entire country and bring it under the control of the government now called the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai has been in office since 2001. Although NATO has a detailed timeline for the pull/full withdrawal of NATO troops by 2014 and the continued funding of the Afghan forces by NATO, not a word has been mentioned about elections. Karzai has not been accused of being a dictator even though severe human rights abuses, torture and killing of suspected terrorists by the Afghan military have been witnessed. Let’s also note that Afghanistan is the the world’s leading producer of the poppy plant which is used to make the drugs opium, heroin and morphine. Afghanistan’s production of opium has also steadily increased since the war began in 2001.
What is also interesting is that one of the most powerful leaders of the rebel army in Libya, Alamin Belhaj, is also credited with chasing Gaddafi out of Tripoli (Libya’s capital). Belhaj also spent years in Afghanistan where he was said to have developed close ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The hypocrisy of NATO’s actions is obvious. If the goal is to defeat al-Qaeda, why support and strengthen those who work with them? This is similar to the Cold War days when NATO was on guard against the USSR (Soviet Union/Russia). Supposedly NATO and the USSR were adversaries but at no time do they fight each other on their own soil. Instead, they "fought" for control of certain areas in the world and, as a traditional Kemetic proverb says, "When two elephants are fighting, it is the grass that suffers." One of these areas was Afghanistan, and the Afghan people have been terrorized in the midst of all this fighting for the last 60 years or more.
The "Global War On Terror" is one of NATO’s major initiatives. Since NATO does not clearly define what it means by terror on its website, so we will look at some textbook definitions:
Terror - violence or threats of violence used for intimidation or coercion; terrorism.
Terrorism - the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.
Terrorist - a person who terrorizes or frightens others.
According to the NATO Deterrence and Defence Posture Review, "Nuclear weapons are a core component of NATO’s overall capabilities for deterrence and defence alongside conventional and missile defence forces." Deterrence means to discourage or restrain from acting or proceeding. So, when suicide bombers and roadside bombs are used to intimidate or coerce, it’s called "terror", but when nuclear weapons are used to discourage or restrain, it’s called "deterrence".
Let’s take the example of hundreds of police blockading the streets of Chicago surrounding the NATO Summit. These police stand guard with their clubs already drawn and ready to strike. My question to the reader is this: when the police are clubbing unarmed protesters on their heads, is it deterrence or terrorism? Whatever you call it, the action is the same. This is an alliance of world leaders so corrupt that even for them to come together and meet publicly, they have to hire an army to guard them because they know in advance that thousands of people will be marching in protest of their actions. The chief of police then has the audacity to shame the protesters for "assaults" on the police. Let’s be clear, this is not different from the double standards we see all over the world. For the "good guys," any action is justifiable and truly, to protect their interests, the forces of colonialism must use every tool at their disposal to "deter" anyone who might stand in their way.
To understand what NATO really stands for is to understand that any concessions they make in response to protest movements, advocacy groups, etc. will do nothing to change their overall agenda. Any concessions are made to get protesters to be quiet and go home so they can continue their dirty work in peace. Whatever promises they make will either be outright lies or will leave some room for them to execute their plan either later or in some way that will avoid breaking the rules. If we are clear on this, we need to ask ourselves, if we haven’t already, what do we gain by protesting?
Protestors put a lot of time and effort into protesting but with questionable results
One week prior to the NATO Summit, the protest group hosted a "People’s Summit" where they addressed world issues that could have been addressed instead of spending money for police to protect the NATO Summit attendees. My question then is what could the protesters have organized themselves to do if they weren’t organizing a protest?
The purpose of this article is not to choose sides. This is not a partisan publication. We are only concerned with truth. The truth is that without NATO as a perceived common enemy, there is no real common ground that all those people are standing on; nothing to bring them together. There are no shared values strong enough to build an organization that will rival NATO, if that is the goal. In that case, every one has gone home and have returned to business as usual. NATO has hosted its summit successfully and with a degree of bloodshed and brutality that has been deemed acceptable by the world at large. Meanwhile, the protesters have done nothing to stop them or slow them down. These are the facts. As long as we have nothing to collectively stand for, we will be at the mercy of con-men who terrorize the world and throw us the scraps from their conquests. These scraps we gladly accept because we can’t even get ourselves together to grow our own food. NATO feeds us, clothes us, and even puts the gas in the cars they make for us. Then when it’s time for us to look good in front of the world, we go out in protest like we don’t have anything to do with their actions, but we work for them too!
No wonder the police only drew clubs instead of guns. We are no real threat to them. Without them, we don’t know what our lives would be like, and that’s scary for us, whether we admit it or not.
If we truly want to remove our support from this system, if we honestly think a better way of life is possible, we have to humble ourselves to the fact that we are products of colonialism, no matter how many protests we go to. The fact is that they even set the rules that govern the protest!
It’s difficult to admit that we are part of the problem, but should have the honesty to do that. Let’s also have the honesty to admit that the only person each of us can control is ourselves. In that case, instead of directing so much attention on fighting outsiders, we should be striving on a constant basis to make ourselves better people, to make sure that we aren’t duplicating or perpetuating the same evils that we are criticizing in others. At least then, in some small way, we will be changing the world for the better. When a group of people unites with the commitment to make themselves better and help each other improve, there is great potential to make a positive impact. Let’s strive to be better each day than we were the last.