Intro: "The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is not a benevolent organization. NATO is not about the North Atlantic and it's not about our collective defense. NATO is a cost-sharing organization that finances aggressive military action."
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). (photo: AFP)
NATO Talks a Sham
22 May 12
he North Atlantic Treaty Organization is not a benevolent organization. NATO is not about the North Atlantic and it's not about our collective defense.
NATO is a cost-sharing organization that finances aggressive military action. By hiding behind the claim that the organization provides for 'common defense,' NATO allows us to wage wars of choice under the guise of international peacekeeping. The most recent example was the unconstitutional war in Libya where NATO, operating under a United Nations mandate to protect civilians, instead backed one side in a civil war and pursued a policy of regime change.
Today, NATO leaders are meeting in Chicago to discuss the future of Afghanistan. The talks are being billed as discussions of plans to end the war. The war in Afghanistan is not ending. These talks are simply about financing the next phase of the war.
The Strategic Partnership Agreement between the U.S. and Afghanistan commits us to the country for at least another decade, despite public support for the war being at an all-time low. The United States will pay for half of the estimated $4.1 billion per year cost of supporting 352,000 Afghan army and police officers. Afghanistan's contribution will be $500,000. The rest will be financed by our 'NATO partners.' It is not surprising that support for the war among NATO members is waning, with France threatening to pull out its troops by the end of this year.
Our participation in NATO comes at a great financial cost to the U.S. We contribute the majority of funds for NATO's common budget, including 25% of the military budget. Between fiscal years 2010 and 2012 alone, we contributed more than $1.3 billion to NATO's military budget. We also incur significant costs through the deployment of our forces in support of NATO missions. According to The Atlantic, the war in Libya cost the United States $1.1 billion.
NATO was originally founded to provide a strategic counterbalance to the Soviet Union. Its founding purpose no longer exists, but NATO continues to circumvent the authority of the United Nations and to provoke other nations. NATO is an anachronism. Instead of trying to bolster the organization, we should begin serious discussions to dismantle it.
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Comments
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Watch this excellent documentary, The Power Principle: Corporate Empire and the National Security State.
It fully outlines exactly what NATO critics such as Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul have been saying for years.
Conservative Senator Robert A. Taft, "Mr. Republican," opposed NATO from its inception. From 1940 to 1952 he battled New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the leader of the GOP's moderate Rockefeller "Eastern Establishment" for control of the Republican Party. In 1957, a Senate committee chaired by John F. Kennedy named Taft as one of the five greatest senators in American history, along with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Robert La Follette.
Also opposed to NATO was Congressman Howard Buffett, father of the billionaire investor, Warren Burrett:
"Even if it were desirable, America is not strong enough to police the world by military force. If that attempt is made, the blessings of liberty will be replaced by coercion and tyranny at home. Our Christian ideals cannot be exported to other lands by dollars and guns. Persuasion and example are the methods taught by the Carpenter of Nazareth, and if we believe in Christianity we should try to advance our ideals by his methods. We cannot practice might and force abroad and retain freedom at home. We cannot talk world cooperation and practice power politics."
In the future it will be the front for the war for water and land.
CAn you say "GENN-O-Cide?"
Al Qaeda was not invited into Afghanistan by the Taliban, but tolerated there -- even though it was originally a CIA invention.
Maybe, as you say, a good f'n plan, would be to stop f'n with the sovereignty of the rest of the world, and stop fighting WWII. Also, bring troops home from Japan and Europe, and find better ways to spend our treasure than the military-indust rial complex. In no way does this mean we have to be apathetic about our security and well-being. Just reducing our greedy overreach would reduce the recruiting rationale of the Al-Quidas of the world
Just imagine what we in the US could do with these monies (our money) right here at home.
Just imagine:
. More Jobs
. Affordable housing
. Less homeless
. Less welfare
. Affordable healthcare
. Less hungry children
. Affordable fuel
. and on and on....just imagine!
"NATO - please re-define your mission"
and
"NATO - do you really want to support U.S. Empire?"
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2008/04/01/ron-paul-disband-nato/print/
The main purpose of his campaigns over the years has been to pave the way for his equally "venereal" son whom I believe will be President someday soon; and when that happens, God help us all...including his blind and thoughtless supporters.
— George Washington, Farewell Address [September 17, 1796]
http://www.fff.org/comment/com1205q.pdf
"No More Entangling Alliances," by Laurence M. Vance
When the empire collapses (real soon now) we need all the organized help we can muster to rebuild a sane world.
We destroyed Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, so US and NATO country corporations could benefit. And that's the tip of the criminal iceberg. This is public knowledge, not an opinion. Feel free to get a little informed
Osama bin Laden, with aid from the CIA program Operation Cyclone, trained jihadists. After the Soviets withdrew from the country in 1989, the United States referred to him and his soldiers as "Freedom Fighters." He was “befriended” much the way the U.S. coddled Saddam Hussein when he was warring against Iran. Values are not considerations. “Free market” profiteering and neoliberal expansionism are.
If there was only sand under the sand in Iraq would we have invaded that nation? And here is more news: Afghanistan will start pumping oil before the end of the year. Hmm, what is the connection? Could it be OIL?
The arms race is built on fear, or more appropriately, downright lies. Carl Sagan opined that the arms race is like two people entering a gasoline soaked room. One has 5000 matched and the other 10,000. Get the picture?
NATO is being maintained on fear. And every dollar the U.S. pours into it is money denied to the people of our nation...to the schools, job creating infrastructure upgrades, health care, security in retirement.
The US is no longer a democracy. It has become a corptocracy, and the might of the US military, and state and city police is used to beat back any attempts to return it to a democracy. That is true at home and abroad. Eschew fear. Embrace democracy.
In summary: Kucinich is correct. Case closed.
http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2012/05/hillary-clinton-admits-us-government-created-al-qaeda
Hillary Clinton Admits the U.S. Government Created al-Qaeda
by grtv
The Mujahideen were the "database" of Al-Qaeda assets. Al-Qaeda are a controlled opposition force of the Central Intelligence Agency to promote their middle east destabilization process, to give empirical U.S. Military Industrial Complex a reason to invade wherever they want in the ever widening "war on terror" fraud.
This kind of stuff I am hearing from the Left now really rivals the Right in deliberate obtuseness and dissembling.
You used to be able to count on the Liberals not to do these kind of simpleton lies, but not anymore.
The US often supports terrorist organizations (such as the MEK and various oens in Central America).
The problem is that you are uninformed.
BTW -- I am not a liberal -- I'm a socialist. (Do you know the difference?) Read WSWS and you can get some quality news.
And make no mistake about it. The US pays the biggest share in all of NATO! At a time we are cutting from our own people, this is shameful at best!
Every nation that is a member of NATO, and I include all those nations that used to be part of the old Soviet Union (SU)that were stupid & naive enough to give up their newly found freedom when the SU broke up just to relinquish it to the U.S., should hold their heads in shame. They don't deserve freedom. They had it and they gave it away.
I condemn the French people & the English & the Germans, and the people of all the other nations who are members of NATO for continually voting in leaders whose fealty is more to satisfying U.S. needs & demands than that of their own people.
I have come to the irrefutable belief that human beings, in the end, are self-destructiv e and will always vote against their own personal interests. It is my strong belief that what happened in Nazi Germany was no fluke, that, in the end, will always be the natural way of things.
Canada is another example of this when Canadians keep on voting Prime Minister Stephen Harper into office.
But it also kills Liberals chances to affect the government because they all seem lax on defense. The world is a scary place and we are not perfect, but what other country is more fit to lead? And someone will if we pull back and lose control.
We should not allow that …. what we ought to be concerned about as Liberal/Progres sives in my opinon is worrying about domstic policy and giving a little to the Republicans who are right on this defense things and the American empire.
The only way this world is going to work right and work for Americans is if America leads the world. We can make it better, a lot easier than we can affect China Russia or Radical Islam.
We need to give the Republicans their due - regulated of course, and work on making life better for the American people - that is the deal, that is the compromise, and it needs to happen soon.
The "American Empire"?
"America leads the world"?
Do you lead your neighborhood, or can you live in peace with the guy next door?
I am not a bleeding heart pacifist (I even have been in the Army) but the world is a scary place when stupid people find it that because their country happens to be dominent economically at some point in time it becomes their due to own the world - and f**k it up in the process.
No, it is not the end of History.
Don't do unto others...
...becasue the times will change and one day you or your children will be on the receiving end.
I agree that some level of defense is required, I agree that America is more benevolent a power than others have been, but this "policing the world" business rakes of fascism andd empire.
If you want some perspective, read "Exterminate all the brutes" (by Sven Lindqvist) and see if you can reconcile "Empire" with "Moral" or even "Christian".
Now that is money that can be put to good use. All the more reason to desolve NATO. In all fairness, if the Warsaw Pact had to desolve then NATO is obligated to desolve.
Thanks for that spell check. Upon typing it I knew it looked rather odd, but forgot there's an (i).
Kucinich: US 'Sanction Warfare' Makes Real Iran War Inevitable
War mentality has saturated Washington and arms merchants want to benefit, says Congressman (d) Dennis Kucinich. He opposes sanctions against Tehran that could lead to war, and is sure the US should forget about trying to conquer other countries.
Video By RT - Posted May 23, 2012
[...]
Transcript too
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