... prosecute the war criminals

This text prepared in the context of the April 7 2019 Florence International Conference: No War, No NATO will centre on the key relationship between US-NATO military operations directed against targeted countries and the imposition of  far-reaching neoliberal economic reforms both before and in the wake of US-NATO military interventions. 

This article will also address the dangers and consequences of a Third World War as well the nature of advanced weapons systems deployed by the broader US-NATO coalition.

Extensive war crimes have been committed by NATO member states.

The object of the Florence Venue is NATO-EXIT. The Dismantling of NATO and the closure of US military bases. 

There is a (somewhat contradictory) clause within the Treaty of the Atlantic Alliance (Article 13) which enables withdrawal from NATO. This clause has to be examined and a strategy must be envisaged.

In our conclusion we will address what types of actions are required by mass movements to reach this objective, bearing in mind that since the war on Iraq (2003), protest movements have been coopted and manipulated. While global warming makes the headlines, the dangers of nuclear war are barely mentioned. Why?

Odeon Theatre, Florence, Sunday April 7, from 10am to 18pm, Italian and English

Introduction and Overview

Washington’s unspoken hegemonic objective is Worldwide militarization and economic conquest. This imperial design  is carried out through acts of war, military intervention, coups d’Etat, regime change, US sponsored insurgencies, cyber-warfare, economic sabotage and destabilization. “All options are on the table”.

We are at an important threshold in our history

In relation to all previous wars, today’s advanced military arsenal includes nuclear, biological, chemical and electromagnetic weapons which have the ability to destroy human life on a Worldwide scale.

War Propanganda

This military agenda is supported by an extensive propaganda apparatus.

The dangers of a World War are casually dismissed. War is portrayed as a humanitarian endeavor. The Mainstream media contends that war is a peace-making undertaking and that NATO should be granted the Nobel Peace prize.

Propaganda sustains the war agenda.

It provides a human face to war criminals in high office. Without media disinformation which upholds war as a peacemaking endeavor, America’s military agenda would collapse like a house of cards.

The imminent dangers of modern warfare are not front page news.

War is portrayed as a Peace-making endeavour.  War Becomes Peace, Realities are turned upside down.

When the Lie becomes the Truth, there is no turning backwards. War criminals are portrayed as peace-makers.

War and Globalization. The Neoliberal Agenda

War and globalization go hand in hand. Militarization supports  the imposition of macro-economic restructuring on targeted countries. It imposes military spending in support of the war economy at the expense of the civilian economy. It leads to economic destabilization and the demise of national institutions.

Military interventions are coupled with concurrent acts of economic sabotage and financial manipulation. The ultimate objective is conquest of both human and natural resources as well as political institutions.

Acts of war support a process of outright economic conquest.  America’s hegemonic project is to transform sovereign countries into open territories. Debt conditionalities are imposed by foreign creditors. In turn, large sectors of the World population are impoverished through the concurrent imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms.

9/11 and the Invasion of Afghanistan. NATO and the “Global War on Terrorism”

The September 11, 2001 attacks (9/11) constitute an important and historical threshold. On the 12th of September 2001, the North Atlantic Council in Brussels invoking for the first time the doctrine of collective security (art. 5 of the Washington Treaty) adopted the following resolution:

“if it is determined that the [September 11, 2001] attack against the United States was directed from abroad [Afghanistan] against “The North Atlantic area“, it shall be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty”. (emphasis added)

This historic decision was supported by media propaganda. There was no attack against the US by a foreign power. There were no Afghan jet fighters in the skies of New York. There was a terror event. But it was not an act of war by a foreign power against the United States of America.

Without a shred of evidence, Afghanistan was tagged as the state sponsor of the 9/11 high-jackers, all of whom were Saudi nationals. Allegedly Afghanistan was “protecting” 9/11 terror mastermind Osama bin Laden  (who was an “intelligence asset”, recruited in the early 1980s by the CIA ). Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts were known. On the 10th of September (as documented by Dan Rather CBS News) Osama had been admitted to the urology department of a military hospital in Rawalpindi, by America’s staunchest ally Pakistan.

Moreover, in the course of September and early October 2001, the Afghan Taliban government on two occasions contacted the US State Department through diplomatic channels and offered to extradite bin Laden to the U.S. This issue was not covered by the media.

Bush responded:” We do not negotiate with terrorists”.

Barely 4 weeks following the 9/11 attack on October 7, 2001, US-NATO invaded Afghanistan, invoking the doctrine of collective security. There was no evidence that “Afghanistan had attacked America” on September 11, 2001.

It is worth noting, confirmed by military analysts that you do not prepare a large scale theatre war in Central Asia, thousands of miles away in a matter of 28 days. This issue was casually dismissed by the mainstream media. The war on Afghanistan had been prepared PRIOR to 9/11.

US-NATO’s Role in Recruiting and Financing Al Qaeda Affiliated Terrorists

NATO has self-proclaimed mandate to go after the terrorists.

Yet there is ample evidence that NATO was involved in supporting as well as recruiting Al Qaeda affiliated mercenaries in Kosovo, Libya and Syria.(among other countries)

Video: NATO is Helping to Fight Terrorism Every Day  (Source NATO)

In Syria, from Day One (March 17, 2011), the Islamist “freedom fighters” were supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command. According to Israeli intelligence sources (Debka, August 14, 2011):

NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011)

This initiative, which was also supported by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States involved a process of organized recruitment of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of  the enlistment of  the Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-89).

In NATO’s war on Libya in 2011, support was channelled to the Al Qaeda affiliated jihadist opposition to the Gadaffi government.

The Legitimacy of  Humanitarian Warfare

The twisted justifications for US-NATO led wars are:

• “The Just War” (Jus ad Bellum). NATO contends that all its wars are morally justifiable. This is tantamount to legitimizing extensive war crimes.
• “The Global War on Terrorism”. The counter-terrorism campaign is fake. Amply documented, NATO is involved in supporting and recruiting jihadist mercenaries (Syria 2011).
• “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) with a view to instilling (Trump style) Western “democracy” Worldwide.
• Pre-emptive war as a means of “self-defense”, Attack them before they attack us. This doctrine also pertains to nuclear weapons, i.e. blow up the planet as a means of ‘self-defense”
• RussiaGate, “Self-defense” against Russia under the doctrine of collective security
• Pivot to Asia, Targeting China.

Financing US-NATO led Wars

In recent developments, President Trump has proposed major spending cuts in health, education, social infrastructure “while seeking a large increase for the Pentagon”. At the outset of his administration, president Trump confirmed that he was increasing the budget for the nuclear weapons program launched by Obama from 1.0 trillion to 1.2 trillion dollars. The stated objective was to make the world safer.

Throughout the EU, extended military spending coupled with austerity measures is leading to the demise of what was called the “Welfare State”.

NATO is committed to increasing military spending. It is the right thing to do to “keep our people secure, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

Source NATO

This favors the weapons producers at the expense of social programs. Mass movements against neoliberal economic policy and social inequality (Yellow Vests) cannot, therefore, be divorced from the anti-war movement.

Globalization and the Corporate Power Structures

Global warfare sustains the Neoliberal Agenda and vice versa.

Neoliberalism broadly defined is not limited to a set of economic paradigms and structural reforms. What we are dealing with is an imperial project broadly serving powerful global overlapping interests:

• Wall Street and the Global Banking Apparatus
• The Military Industrial Complex,
• Big Oil,
• the Biotech conglomerates, Bayer-Monsanto et al
• Big Pharma,
• The Global Narcotics Economy and Organized Crime,
• the Media Conglomerates and the Information and Communication Technology Giants.

The military agenda is geared towards supporting and endorsing these powerful interests groups. There is of course within  these sectors, mounting conflict between global conglomerates, each of which have their lobby groups.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

NATO and the De Facto US Military Occupation of Western Europe

70 years ago NATO was born. In April 1949, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established what was designated as the doctrine of “Collective Security” under Art. 5 of the Washington Treaty.

NATO has a sordid history of aggression and war crimes:

Ever since its founding in April 1949, NATO has served as the vehicle to spur the arms race in the name of ‘peace through strength’. In that very same year, the Truman Administration in the United States secretly developed “Operation Dropshot’ to launch a devastating ‘first-strike’ against the former Soviet Union to completely obliterate that country. Throughout the ‘cold war’ years, the U.S. and its NATO allies always maintained an overwhelming military superiority over the USSR and the Warsaw Pact – a fact that they cynically concealed from public view at the time, but now readily admit. (Canadian Peace Congress)

The unspoken objective of  NATO –which is of significance to our debate in Florence–, was to sustain under a different label, the de facto “military occupation” of Western Europe.  The US not only continues to “occupy” World War II “axis countries” (Italy, Germany), it has used the NATO emblem to install US military bases throughout Western Europe, as well as in Eastern Europe in the wake of the Cold War, extending into the Balkans in the wake of NATO’s war on Yugoslavia.

Today, NATO consists of  29 member states, most of which have US military facilities on their territory, with the largest deployments of US forces in Germany and Italy. Bear in mind these are not NATO bases. The latter are limited to command and logistics: e.g. SHAPE Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, Casteau, Belgium, NATO Allied Command Transformation, Norfolk, Virginia

• 12 founding member states in 1949 Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
• Greece and Turkey (1952),
• Germany (1955),
• Spain (1982)
• Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999),
• Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia (2004),
• Albania and Croatia (2009),
• Montenegro (2017)

A number of other countries have established partnership agreements with NATO. Israel is a de facto member of NATO, based on an agreement reached in 2003. In turn, the US has established a host of military alliances on a regional basis.

Source: NATO

Under the semblance of a multi-national military alliance, the Pentagon dominates NATO decision-making. The US controls NATO command structures, which are embedded into those of the US. The Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) as well as the  Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT) are Americans appointed by Washington. NATO current Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is essentially a bureaucrat. He does not call the shots.

Two other key command structures Allied Command Transformation (ACT) and Allied Command Operations (ACO), “responsible for the planning and execution of all NATO military operations” were added in 2002.

Under the terms of the military alliance, NATO member states are harnessed into endorsing Washington’s imperial design of World conquest under the doctrine of collective security. 

In 1949, NATO became a Cold War instrument which prevented and undermined the development of trade,  political, social and cultural relations between Western Europe and the Soviet block including Eastern Europe.

For Washington, with the Pentagon pulling the strings, NATO has become a convenient military “multi-state proxy”.

The strategic objectives of the US with regard to NATO are:

1. The de facto US Military Occupation of Western, Eastern Europe and Canada through the establishment of US military bases in most NATO member states
2. The imposition of US Foreign Policy, requiring the acceptance (under the doctrine of collective security) of all US war plans by NATO member states (including military deployments on Russia’s doorstep)
3. A mechanism whereby the Pentagon finances its wars and military operations through contributions by each NATO member state, at tax-payers expense;
4. The conduct of US-led wars under the emblem of the NATO military alliance, thereby obliging NATO member states to deploy their military capabilities as well as “do the dirty work for us”, i.e. killing and destruction on behalf of Washington.
5. The extension of US influence in the post war period into the former colonies of  Western European countries (France, Belgium, Italy, Britain)

Military Occupation is tagged as “Protection” and the governments of NATO member states are actually “Paying the U.S. to Occupy their countries”. It is all for a good cause. “Make the World Safer”:

“The biggest indignity yet was the ludicrous demand that NATO allies pay to host the American troops permanently garrisoned there – to essentially bankroll their own occupations. Last week, it was reported the US would begin asking some of its most hospitable allies – those nations home to hundreds of thousands of soldiers – to foot the bill for the cost of keeping them “safe.”(H. Busyinsi,

I should mention that in addition to recommending NATO for the Nobel Peace Prize, the media relentlessly presents NATO as an instrument of  peace-making.