Pelosi and McConnell Crank Up NATO Madness
March 31, 2019
Norman Solomon calls for all forms of pushback against a militarized
political culture welcoming a NATO chief to Congress this week.
By Norman Solomon
NormanSolomon.com
When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
teamed up to invite NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to address a
joint session of Congress, they had every reason to expect the April 3
speech to be a big hit with U.S. media and political elites. The
establishment is eager to affirm the sanctity of support for the
transatlantic military alliance.
Huge reverence for NATO is matched by how dangerous NATO has become. NATO's
continual expansion - all the way to Russia's borders - has significantly
increased the chances that the world's two nuclear superpowers will get into
direct military conflict.
But in the United States, when anyone challenges the continued expansion of
NATO, innuendos or outright smears are likely.
Two years ago, when the Senate debated whether to approve bringing
Montenegro into NATO, the mud flew at Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky after he
showed up to object. An infuriated Sen. John McCain declared on the Senate
floor: "I have no idea why anyone would object to this, except that I will
say - if they object, they are now carrying out the desires and ambitions of
Vladimir Putin, and I do not say that lightly."
Moments later, when Paul said "I object," McCain proclaimed: "The senator
from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin."
Berlin Wall remnant outside new NATO headquarters building in Brussels.
(DoD/Jim Garamone)
Berlin Wall remnant outside NATO'S Brussels headquarters. (DoD/Jim Garamone)
With those words, McCain conveyed the common madness of reverence for NATO -
and the common intolerance for anything that might approach a rational
debate on whether it's a good idea to keep expanding an American-led
military alliance to, in effect, push Russia into a corner. Doing so is
understandably viewed from Russia as a dire threat. (Imagine a Russian-led
military alliance expanding to Canada and Mexico, complete with some of the
latest missile systems on the planet.)
Closing in on Russia
Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall - and the quickly broken promises by
the U.S. in 1990 that NATO would move "not one inch eastward" - NATO has
been closing in on Russia's borders while bringing one nation after another
into full military membership. During the last three decades, NATO has added
13 countries - and it's not done yet.
NATO members "have clearly stated that Georgia will become a member of
NATO," Stoltenberg asserted days ago while visiting the Georgian capital of
Tbilisi. He added: "We will continue working together to prepare for
Georgia's NATO membership." For good measure, he took to Twitter on March
25:
Very few members of Congress can be heard raising any concerns about such
reckless expansion. The Senate is key, because adding a country to full NATO
membership requires Senate approval.
My colleagues at RootsAction.org have just launched a constituent email
campaign on this issue. In every state, people are contacting their senators
with individual emails urging them to oppose NATO expansion. Such
constituent pressure needs to escalate.
Lobbying is only part of what's needed. As NATO marks its 70th anniversary
next week with a range of activities - including a White House welcome for
Stoltenberg on Tuesday, his speech to Congress the next day and an official
"celebration" on April 4 - counter-actions including forums and protests as
part of a "No to NATO" week will be happening in Washington.
A statement from the campaign says:
"NATO and a just, peaceful and sustainable world are incompatible.. It is an
unjust, undemocratic, violent and aggressive alliance trying to shape the
world for the benefit of a few."
Such evaluations of NATO in the real world are a far cry from the adulation
that will be coming from mass media next week.
President Donald Trump's decision to roll out the White House red carpet for
NATO's secretary general is consistent with the administration's actions
during the last two years. Media narratives that fixate on occasional warm
rhetoric from Trump about Russian President Vladimir Putin have fueled
illusions that Trump isn't pursuing aggressive anti-Russian policies.
NATO expansion map. (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
NATO expansion map. (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
While many Democratic politicians and U.S. media outlets have portrayed
Trump as soft on Russia and uncommitted to Western militarism, such claims
don't hold up to facts. Trump and his top deputies have repeatedly affirmed
a commitment to NATO, while his overall policies (if not always his
rhetoric) have been dangerously bellicose toward Russia.
In an email message to the D.C. area encouraging participation in "No to
NATO" events next week, RootsAction points out:
"Trump has evicted Russian diplomats, sanctioned Russian officials, put
missiles practically on Russia's border, sent weapons into Ukraine, lobbied
European nations to drop Russian energy deals, left the Iran agreement, torn
up the INF Treaty, rejected Russia's offers on banning weapons in space and
banning cyberwar, expanded NATO eastward, added a NATO partner in Colombia,
proposed adding Brazil, demanded and successfully moved most NATO members to
buy significantly more weapons, splurged on more nukes, bombed Russians in
Syria, overseen the largest war rehearsals in Europe in half a century,
condemned all proposals for a European military and insisted that Europe
stick with NATO."
When NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg gives his speech to the assembled
members of Congress next Wednesday, you can count on the House speaker and
Senate majority leader to be right behind him. The bipartisan enthusiasm
will be obvious - in tribute to a militarized political culture that is
vastly profitable for a few, while vastly destructive in countless ways.
Only public education, activism, protests and a wide range of political
organizing have the potential to disrupt and end the reflexive support for
NATO in Washington.
Norman Solomon is cofounder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. He
was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 Democratic
National Convention and is currently a coordinator of the relaunched Bernie
Delegates Network. Solomon is the author of a dozen books, including "War
Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." He is the
executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.