- So NATO's head berates its foes, as the alliance pursues
its own version of rationality, oblivious to world pleas for disarmament
or its alarming failure in Afghanistan, says Eric Walberg
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- Just when there seemed to be a glimmer of real change
in US-Russian relations -- Russia giving in to the US on START and assuring
the continuation of the Kyrgyz US airbase -- the logic of US empire reasserts
itself with a slap in the Russian face. Even Poland, Russia's age-old nemesis,
is trying to bury the hatchet, after the shocking aircrash near Katyn,
a tragic, if farcical, repeat of the WWII massacre on Stalin's orders.
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- In another echo of that war -- Hitler's siege of Leningrad
-- NATO cold-bloodedly chose Tallinn, Estonia, a stone's throw from St
Petersburg, as the venue of its latest deliberations about expanding eastward
and how best to convince the world and Russia in particular to comply with
its ambitious plans to bring the world to heel.
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- The two-day NATO foreign ministers meeting on 22-23 April
focussed on the military alliance's 21st century Strategic Concept and
on the war in Afghanistan. Top on the agenda was putting paid to any notion
that nuclear weapons might be removed from Europe; rather, they would be
integrated into the Pentagon's pan-European interceptor missile programme
in line with the US Department of Defence's new Nuclear Posture Review.
Proclaimed NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen: "Missile
defence is no replacement for an effective deterrent. But it can complement
it. Because there are states, or other actors, who might not be rational
enough to be deterred by our nuclear weapons. But they might be deterred
by the realisation that their few missiles might not get through our defences."
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- Fogh seems to be saying: If, say, Iran launches nuclear
war against Europe, we are ready. What he is really saying is: If the US
launches a war against Iran, an interceptor system could prevent effective
retaliation.
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- Revealing his personal opinion that NATO must embrace
the US missile defence system as its own, Fogh philosophised, "The
missile threat to Europe is clear which means, to my mind, that we need
to take on Alliance missile defence as a NATO mission. In Lisbon, NATO
nations will decide if missile defence for our European territory and population
should become an Alliance mission. I make no secret that I think it should."
These NATO meetings, once every three years, are now annual and even semi-annual
events, often hosted by its new members: the Czech Republic in 2002, Romania
in 2008, and now Estonia, with another one in Portugal in November to finalise
the new Strategic Concept and formally embrace Reagan's Starwars fantasy
as NATO's own.
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- Just to make sure Russia understands its role in NATO's
plans for Russia's "near abroad", Fogh said, "We need a
visible presence of NATO across the entire territory of our Alliance. And
we see a perfect example here in this region. We have put in place arrangements
to police the Baltic airspace. We also need to guard against new risks
and threats to the security of our nations, such as energy cut-offs or
cyber attacks." He might as well have come right out and told Russia:
Watch out! Any disputes with your neighbours are now NATO's business.
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- In a jab at Germany for suggesting last November that
US nuclear weapons could be removed at long last from Europe, he said,
"A credible Alliance nuclear posture and the demonstration of Alliance
solidarity" requires "peacetime basing of nuclear forces in
Europe. The Alliance will therefore maintain adequate nuclear forces in
Europe."
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- US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said any reductions
should be tied to a nuclear pullback by Russia. In other words, if Russia
meekly joins NATO Estonia-fashion and gives up its nuclear weapons altogether,
NATO might reconsider its nuclear presence in Europe, another slap in the
Russian face and a violation of the gentleman's agreement between Reagan
and Gorbachev for the withdrawal of all US and Soviet troops and nuclear
weapons from Europe in the 1980s.
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- Currently there are from 200-400 US tactical nuclear
weapons stored on air bases in Britain, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands
and Turkey. All but Britain are non-nuclear states, and the storage of
US nuclear weapons on their territories means the US not only broke its
promise to Gorbachev, but that it is in violation of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty.
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- Clinton's invitation last month for Russia to join in
the proposed NATO missile defence (really just the new public face of the
US system) was of course a ruse or a taunt (does humourless Hillary perhaps
have a sense of humour after all?). Even if Russia took her up on this,
the Pentagon's new Prompt Global Strike programme "is striving for
fast-strike, first-strike conventional weapons military superiority that
could render Russia's nuclear forces easy to neutralise, hence useless,"
according to analyst Rick Rozoff. Former head of the Russian Air Force
General Anatoly Kornukov described the recent launching of the X-37B "mini
shuttle" as further evidence of the US weaponisation of space. "Now
the US will be able to deliver a strike in a short time without due resistance.
Aggressors from space could turn Russia into something like Iraq or Yugoslavia."
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- Having no alternative, Russia reluctantly yielded to
the US Starwars project by the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaty 8 April. To mollify superhawks in the Senate, US Missile Defence
Agency official Patrick O'Reilly immediately told a hearing of the House
Armed Services subcommittee on defence appropriations: "The new START
treaty actually reduces constraints on the development of the missile defence
programme," unconcerned that he was making the Russians look like
fools or even cowards.
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- But the boasting in Tallinn and Washington is not being
met with silence. Russian officials have warned that START may come to
a halt if US provocations against Russia continue. As the NATO meeting
closed, in Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry official Andrei Nesterenko
said with exasperation, "It is not clear to us why Patriot anti-aircraft
and anti-missile systems are being deployed near the Russian border. Nor
have we an answer to the question about what threats will be tackled in
the drill which will be held very close to Russia's Kaliningrad region."
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- The other issue on the NATO agenda that just won't go
away, no matter how many lives and bombs NATO throws at it, is of course
Afghanistan. Setting the stage for a gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan,
the meeting adopted a plan that sets conditions for removing troops from
a lead role by the end of this year, proposing to transfer security to
Afghan police if there is reconciliation with the Taliban and a durable
civilian government in place. This would allow Obama to meet his deadline
for starting to pull out American troops by July 2011.
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- The sole "rational" voice at the Tallinn talkfest,
NATO chief civilian representative Mark Sedwill, did not give much succour
to attendees: "To many Afghans, this is essentially us fighting our
war for our reasons on their soil." He was no doubt thinking of the
recent poll -- conducted by the US in US-occupied areas of Kandahar --
where 85 per cent said they viewed the Taliban as their brothers and want
the occupation troops out immediately. The recent surges have brought only
increased deaths on all sides -- soldiers, insurgents, civilians alike.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded they be called off and threatened
to join the Taliban himself.
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- Fogh pondered as to how to engage Russia on this issue
"to the benefit of Europe's security and its political unity",
even as Russia bends over backwards to accommodate the NATO war effort
with its open skies policy and acceptance of the US base in Kyrgyzstan
with nary a murmur of protest.
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- As NATO trumpeted its military prowess in the Baltic
minnow, Russia undertook some quiet, "rational" diplomacy with
a far more important neighbour, signing a deal on gas supplies and the
future of the Russian naval base in Sevastopol. In exchange for a 30 per
cent discount on Russian gas deliveries, Ukraine will allow the Russian
Black Sea Fleet to remain in Crimea and will not join NATO until at least
2042, a "political-strategic" victory, said Volodymyr Fesenko,
the head of the Penta Centre for Applied Political Studies in Kiev. "Russia
not only preserves a military presence in the Black Sea basin and on Ukrainian
territory, but also has a factor of influence on external security policy
and internal affairs in Ukraine." Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich
said that Ukraine would receive from Russia "a real investment of
resources, specifically gas, of around $40 billion dollars" over the
next ten years.
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- Russia heals wounds while NATO is signing its own death
warrant with its current hubris. The people of Europe, as opposed to their
compliant politicians, want to be nuclear-free, just as they want their
troops out of Afghanistan or wherever, and at some point will have their
say. The Dutch government already collapsed on the issue. Estonians, still
in their honeymoon stage with NATO, fete their Euro-warriors and willingly
send their handful of troops to kill Afghans, but their more blase cousins
the Finns have recently joined the Euro-majority in wanting their troops
out either immediately or within the year. Their mutual WWII foe, Germany,
is even less enthusiastic, with 62 per cent wanting out. Their mutual WWII
ally, Britain, is even less so, with 77 per cent wanting out.
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- A recent memo from the CIA -- which has nothing to do
with NATO, of course -- targets France and Germany to shore up public support
using propaganda about drugs, terrorism and women's rights. But the best-laid
plans of mice and men go oft awry.
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- Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/
You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/
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