NATO Has Been Called Greatest Threat to World PeaceNow Biden Plans
Dangerous Expansion That Will Increase Military Spending and Escalate the
Risk of War - CovertAction Magazine
Biden at NATO: Ready to talk China, Russia and soothe allies
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks with U.S. President Joe Biden
during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit at NATO
headquarters in Brussels, June 14, 2021. [Source: pri.org]
Biden calls support for NATO a sacred obligation as he raises false alarms
about alleged military threats from Russia and China
Antagonizes Russia further at Geneva summit by calling out its supposedly
terrible human rights recordwhen the U.S. has run secret torture prisons
From the moment he was elected to the U.S. Senate, Joe Biden was groomed for
high office by his mentor, Averell Harriman, a fabulously wealthy investment
banker, governor of New York, coordinator of the Marshall Plan, and one of
the original U.S. representatives to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) after its formation in 1949.
Harriman died in 1986 but would have been proud of his protégé on Monday,
June 14th, when Biden gave a public briefing at the annual NATO summit in
Brussels in which he affirmed the U.S. commitment to the NATO alliance and
Article 5 of its charter as a sacred obligation.
Biden also lauded a NATO blueprint promoting greater military spending to
contain the alleged threats from China and Russiawhich Biden following
Harriman has long played up.
Biden further received $447,277 from Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the
F-16 Fighting Falcon jet, a NATO favorite, which last year began air patrols
for NATO over Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries.
20200919_us_f-16_av_lands-xy4Wx1
A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon assigned to the 555th Fighter
Squadron, Aviano Air Base, Italy, lands on Graf Ignatievo Air Base,
Bulgaria, for an exercise in September 2020. [Source: ac.nato.int]
The above totals show who is driving Bidens support for NATOs latest
military buildup, which includes the expansion of space-based weapons and
military exercises, airborne surveillance systems, and a growing forward
presence in the Baltic states and Poland.
Warped Spending Priorities
NATO was established as a military alliance between Western European
countries and the United States and Canada to contain alleged Soviet
aggression.
Since the end of the Cold War, it has added 16 new member-nations and
expanded to Russias borderdespite a promise by U.S. Secretary of State
James Baker to Mikhail Gorbachev that it would not do so.
A person in a suit talking to another person
Description automatically generated with low confidence
James A. Baker with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 in Moscow making a false
promise. Gorbachev should have known from U.S. history never to trust an
American leader. [Source: nsarchive.gwu.edu]
A Brussels Summit Communiqué claimed that NATO was the most successful
Alliance in history, whose importance today resulted from multiple
threats to Western democracies from assertive and authoritarian powers,
notably China and Russia, whose aggressive actions constitute a threat to
Euro-Atlantic security.
The Communiqué warned further about new cyber, hybrid and other asymmetric
threats, including disinformation campaigns, and by the malicious use of
ever-more sophisticated emerging and disruptive technologies.
This is seen as justification for a renewed commitment to the two percent
GDP metric agreed upon in 2014 in which NATO member-states contribute two
percent of their budget toward NATOa total that will be increased after
2024.
Donald Trump had generated great publicity during his presidency demanding
that NATO members adhere to the two percent provision, though Biden adopted
the same position, bragging on Monday that ten countries had met the two
percent goal [the number is actually twelve] and that the others were on
the way.
Despite the pandemic, 2020 witnessed a 13.6% increase in worldwide military
spending. NATO states spent $1.062 trillion on the military, approximately
56% of the global total.
NATO Service Weapons by nation.
NATO service weapons by nation. [Source: m4a1-shermayne.tumblr.com]
Quique Sánchez, a Barcelonan peace activist noted at Stop NATO 2021, a
webinar sponsored by the Left in the European Parliament, that if even a
fraction of this military spending were cut, the entire world could be given
COVID vaccines, and the public health crisis would recede.
Education and health care would also be adequately funded and proper action
taken to combat climate change.
At an April 2019 anti-NATO protest in Washington, D.C., folk singers Ben
Grosscup and Luci Murphy performed the song NATOs Got to Go, which
characterized NATO as a political scheme to sell the whole world with the
flu.
The song went on: From Kosovo to Afghanistan to African shores, the
bureaucrats of NATO just keep making war.
No to NATO Yes to Peace FESTIVAL - World Beyond War . . .
Ben Grosscup performing folk song NATOs Got to Go at a Washington, D.C.,
anti-NATO rally in April 2019. Medea Benjamin, founder of the peace group
CodePink, stands with sign Say No to NATO. [Source: worldbeyondwar.org]
NATO indeed has spearheaded illegal military interventions, such as in Libya
where the removal of secular pan-Africanist Muammar Qaddafi resulted in a
decade of civil war, empowered Islamic fundamentalists, and led to the
reintroduction of slavery.
Civilian Casualties in NATO's Air Campaign in Libya | HRW
Relatives and neighbors search for survivors in the rubble of the Gafez
family home in Majer on August 9, 2011, one day after NATO strikes on this
and another compound killed 34 people and wounded more than 30. [Source:
hrw.org]
NATO 2030 Agenda
One priority of the Brussels NATO summit was to promote the new report, NATO
2030: United for a New Era, which aims to repurpose NATO as a bulwark
against supposed Chinese and Russian aggression in the new Cold War.
Germany at NATO on Twitter: "The report of the experts' group NATO 2030 -
United for a New Era is now online. It will play a key role in our
discussions in
[Source: twitter.com]
The report was written by a group of ten experts assembled by NATO Secretary
General Jens Stoltenberg. They include Dr. A. Wess Mitchell, the U.S.
Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs from 2017 to
2019, who was among the earliest proponents of placing NATO personnel in
Poland and the Baltic States in the aftermath of the 2008 Russo-Georgian
War, and pushed for expanded U.S. military aid to Georgia and Ukraine.[1]
A person in a suit and tie
Description automatically generated with medium confidence
Dr. A. Wess Mitchella modern-day Kissinger or Dr. Strangelove. [Source:
wikipedia.org]
Predictably, NATO 2030 uses hostile language demonizing China and Russia,
with recommendations that will lead to growing confrontation.
Some of those recommendations are illegalthe report, for example, advocates
sustaining the nuclear arms race, despite the UN having outlawed nuclear
weapons.
The extreme measures advocated in the report are justified under the claim
that NATO has responded with resolve to the threat posed by Russian
aggression in the Euro-Atlantic region, and that this threat has to be
deterred.
Russia, however, was never an aggressor in the Euro-Atlantic region.
It responded in 2014 to a Western-backed coup in Ukraine by re-annexing
Crimeawhich historically belonged to Russia and which its population voted
onand by supporting a rebellion in Ukraines two eastern provinces, which
the population there broadly supported.
Russias evil is epitomized according to NATO 2030 by its use of chemical
weapons, poisoning and state-sanctioned assassination; however, none of
these accusations has been substantiated.
NATO 2030 further condemns Russia for its allegedly assertive behavior in
the Baltic states and Black Seawhen Russian military maneuvers have been
largely developed in response to U.S.-NATO provocations.
The press release continued: Taking off from Norway, two US Air Force B-1
bombers trained with fighter aircraft from Poland, Italy and Germany [flew]
over the Baltic Sea and flew over the capitals of Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania. In a separate event, two French Rafale fighter jets from the
aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle and two Spanish F-18 aircraft on NATO
duty in Romania took part in drills involving NATO warships in the Black
Sea.
A B-1B Lancer flies with a Danish F-16 during a training mission for Bomber
Task Force Europe, May 5, 2020. Aircrews from the 28th Bomb Wing at
Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, took off on their long-range,
long-duration Bomber Task Force mission to conduct interoperability training
with Danish fighter aircraft and Estonian joint terminal attack controllers
ground teams. Training with our NATO allies and theater partner nations
contribute to enhanced resiliency and interoperability and enables us to
build enduring relationships necessary to confront the broad range of global
challenges. (Courtesy photo by Danish Air Force)
U.S. and Danish fighter jets flying over the Baltic Sea. [Source:
usafe.af.mil]
If Russia had performed the same kind of exercises in the Gulf of Mexico,
flown aircraft over Ottawa, and brought together allies in a hostile
alliance, then Americans too would try to fortify the countrys defensesor
do something far more drastic if history is any guide.
But Russia is apparently not entitled to self-defense in the
American-dominated world order, which NATO helps entrench.
Besides Russia, NATO 2030 notes with alarm the growing power and
assertiveness of China, which has supposedly engaged in intimidatory
diplomacy well beyond the Indo-Pacific region and proved its willingness
to use force against its neighbors.
China, however, has won substantial support with its One Belt-One Road and
other infrastructural development programs, and has not invaded anyone since
the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979while the U.S. has invaded dozens of
countries in that time.
Although NATO 2030 repeatedly accuses Russia and China of promoting
disinformation, it is NATO which is advancing disinformation along with
biased analyses that are designed to secure yet higher levels of military
spending.
The reports concern for climate change and the environment also rings
hollow; military aircraft are major sources of carbon emissions and military
weapons a huge cause of pollution.
Not a Kumbaya MomentThe Biden-Putin Summit
On Wednesday, June 16th, Biden traveled to Geneva and met with Russian
President Vladimir Putin in an 18th century villa in a much-awaited summit.
The tone of the meeting was cordial and Putin and Biden agreed to a) restore
their countries two respective ambassadors; b) begin negotiations on
nuclear talks to potentially replace the new START treaty limiting nuclear
weapons after it expires in 2026; and c) cooperate in the realm of cyber
security, Arctic exploration, and preventing terrorism in Afghanistan, and
Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
U.S. President Joe Biden, left, and Russia's President Vladimir Putin,
right, meet at the start of the U.S.-Russia summit at Villa La Grange in
Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 16, 2021. (Denis Balibouse/Pool Photo
via AP)
U.S. President Joe Biden, left, and Russias President Vladimir Putin,
right, meet at the start of the U.S.-Russia summit at Villa La Grange in
Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 16, 2021. [Source: adn.com]
The Biden-Putin meeting lacked the same circus environment as in 2018 when
Donald Trump was accused in the media and by Democratic Party politicians of
being a traitor for meeting with Putin and hatching certain agreements and
plans.
The latest meeting, however, does not herald a new détente: Biden said that
This is not a kumbaya moment, referring to the feel-good song popular in
the 1960s. This is not about trust. This is about self-interest, and
verification of self-interest.
Failing to share a meal or take a walk with Putin, Biden refused to
reconsider key U.S. policies that have resulted in the new Cold War. These
include: a) the U.S. sanctions policy on Russiawhich has harmed Russia and
has been based on fraudulent pretexts; b) The U.S.s pulling out of the Open
Skies, Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) and Intermediate Nuclear Range Forces
(INF) treaties; and c) NATO expansion.
Biden continued to antagonize Russia further by a) rebuking its human rights
record and treatment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny; and b) affirming
the United Statess unwavering commitment to the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of Ukraine.
The latter statement insinuates that Russia violated Ukraines territorial
integrity when in fact the U.S. was the one to violate it by providing $5
billion over a decade in support of color revolutions and regime-change
efforts that culminated in the 2014 coup détats against Russian-backed
leader Viktor Yanukovych.
This coup triggered Ukraines civil war that drew in the Russiansin defense
of two eastern provinces, Luhansk and Donetsk, whose people voted to secede
after the post-coup Ukrainian government tried to impose the Ukrainian
language on them.
Putin further defended his governments treatment of Alexei Navalny, stating
that Navalny wanted to be arrested because he decided to return to Russia
when there was a warrant out for him.
Vladimir Putin Pressed By ABC News Rachel Scott On Death Of Opponents
Deadline
Putin answering questions at press conference on Wednesday. [Source:
deadline.com]
In the latter case, rioters were [ie. Ashli Babbit] shot on the spot, even
if unarmed, Putin said, marking the U.S. response as worse than anything
Russia had done.
U.S. imperial drives have generally created a dangerous world
environmentwhich Bidens foreign policy has so far helped exacerbate.
Russia and Chinas alliance should prove more durable than the one
established in the 1940s and 1950sand more damaging to Washingtons global
designs that appear more and more unsustainable.