OMNI NATO ANTHOLOGY #2, JUNE 18, 2023

OMNI

NATO ANTHOLOGY #2, JUNE 18, 2023

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

https://omnicenter.org/donate/

CONTENTS NATO ANTHOLOGY #2
What Is NATO Today?

Abelow.  How the West Brought War to Ukraine.

Andre Damon.  “NATO Announces Plan for Massive European Land Army.”  World Socialist Web Site.

Moon of Alabama.  “No, NATO Will Not Get Ready for War.”  Popular Resistance.

Mairead Maguire.  NATO Is the US- dominated Global War Machine.

Victor Grossman.  “Brawling on the Brink.”

Wolfgang Streeck.  “Means of Destruction” (of Russia and China).

George Beebe.  “Ignoring the Ghosts of the ‘Great War.’” (WWI).   

NATO EXPANSION

Opposition to NATO, Shut Down NATO
US and USSR v. NATO Eastern Expansion

Caitlin Johnstone.  “NATO Expands, Responding to War Caused by NATO.”

Stern.  “…Germany Boosts Combat Troops for War against Russia.”

Olluri.  “Sweden…NATO…against Russia.”

Rahman.  NATO v. China.

NATO in Asia.

NATO in Africa.

Damon.  Naval Conflict with Russia.

Hersh.  US Sabotages Russian Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline.

Rick Rozoff.  “NATO’s 1999 aggression against Yugoslavia: Global turning point.”  Mronline.org (3-23-23). 

Sobukwe.  “NATO and Africa.”

Gelfenstein.  “NATO’s growing military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean (Part I, II & III).”

Nordic NATO Expansion.

Al Mayadeen.  Austria v. NATO.

NATO and Global Arms Trade.

Hoon.  NATO in Asia.

World Beyond War.  NATO in Serbia.

Nordic NATO Expansion.

Beeley.  NATO Suppresses Journalists.

NATO and Nuclear Weapons

ICAN.  “New US Nuclear Warheads Coming to Europe.”

Forsberg,  Kähkönen, Moyer.  Finland’s nuclear weapons policy.

Noam Chomsky Interviewed by Barsamian

LIST OF SOURCES (24)
Most of these references are outside the borders of the US or are outside the US media mainstream where they are not welcome; i.e., outside the US capitalist-corporate-military-congressional-presidential-media-National Security State Complex.  This bifurcation of news reporting should be kept in mind in any discussion of US “freedom.”

Al Mayadeen (Arab Media Satellite Channel)

Anti-bellum
Barsamian.  Alternative Radio

Berlin Bulletin

Black Agenda Report

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Chris Hedges report
Consortium News

Countercurrents

CovertAction Magazine

ICAN

Internationalist 360

Liberation News

Monthly Review

New Left Review

Popular Resistance

Responsible Statecraft

Scheerpost

Siland Press

Struggle La Lucha

Transcend Media Services

UNAC

World Beyond War

World Socialist Web Site

TEXTS (published mainly in 2022-3)

What Is NATO?

One of the most important and accessible books of 2022 is: How the West Brought War to Ukraine: Understanding How US and NATO Policies Led to Crisis, War, and the Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe, by Benjamin Abelow,

$10, 60 pp. Siland Press, Great Barrington, MA,  Info@SilandPress.com

Andre Damon.   “NATO announces plan for massive European land army.”Editor.  Mronline.org (7-3-22).

Originally published: World Socialist Web Site (WSWS)  on June 28, 2022 by Andre Damon (more by World Socialist Web Site (WSWS))  |  (Posted Jun 30, 2022).   WarAmericas, Europe, United StatesNewswireNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
In what NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called the “biggest overhaul of our collective deterrence and defense since the Cold War,” the U.S.-led NATO alliance has announced plans to build a massive standing land army in Europe, numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

Stoltenberg said NATO would increase its “high readiness forces” sevenfold, from 40,000 to 300,000, deploying tens of thousands of additional troops, as well as countless tanks and aircraft, directly to Russia’s border.

The move will entail a massive diversion of social resources to NATO’s ongoing war with Russia and planned war with China, draining treasuries throughout Europe and North America and fueling demands for the elimination of social services, the slashing of wages, and the gutting of workers’ pensions.  Stoltenberg said the creation of this massive fighting force was a response to the “new era of strategic competition” with Russia and China.  In what NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called the “biggest overhaul of our collective deterrence and defense since the Cold War,” the U.S.-led NATO alliance has announced plans to build a massive standing land army in Europe, numbering in the hundreds of thousands.  Stoltenberg said NATO would increase its “high readiness forces” sevenfold, from 40,000 to 300,000, deploying tens of thousands of additional troops, as well as countless tanks and aircraft, directly to Russia’s border.

The move will entail a massive diversion of social resources to NATO’s ongoing war with Russia and planned war with China, draining treasuries throughout Europe and North America and fueling demands for the elimination of social services, the slashing of wages, and the gutting of workers’ pensions.

Stoltenberg said the creation of this massive fighting force was a response to the “new era of strategic competition” with Russia and China.   MORE  NATO announces plan for massive European land army | MR Online

[Reply to preceding]

No, NATO Will Not Get Ready For War

By Moon of Alabama. Popular Resistance.org (7-3-22).  NATO does not have 300,000 troops to put on high alert. The troops are controlled by member states and I see no willingness by any of them to shoulder the costs that a real high alert status would have. Units on high alert means that they fully manned with no one on vacation and with enough supplies ready to sustain weeks of battle. All of that costs money. Member states will instead designate existing units as 'high alert' ones and change nothing else in their usual equipment and training. The statement is pure NATO public relations fluff. -more-

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service.  2022.
NATO is the US dominated global war machine whose policy is ‘Full Spectrum Dominance.’ Contrary to its claims, NATO is not a defensive organization but an instrument for US world domination to prevent all challenges to its hegemony.  It should have been disbanded in 1991 after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact but instead expanded into fifteen new countries. 

Victor Grossman.  “Brawling on the Brink.”  Berlin Bulletin no. 211, June 7, 2023.

"NATO—the U.S.-dominated global war machine—whose policy is 'full dominance spectrum,' contrary to its claims, is not a defensive organization. Its purpose has been to act as an instrument for U.S. world domination and to prevent all challenges to U.S. hegemony."—Mairead Maguire

"Means of Destruction"

By Wolfgang Streeck, NLR [New Left Review] Sidecar, posted July 2

On the economics and politics of the military spending by NATO countries in recent years. " For the countries there [Western Europe], the ever more urgent question will be whether they aspire to become more than an American auxiliary charged with controlling Russia and assisting in the upcoming battle with China. The author is a German economic sociologist and emeritus director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne.

"Ignoring the Ghosts of the 'Great War' - at Our Own Peril"

By George Beebe, Responsible Statecraft, posted July 1, 2022.

Argues that lessons from both the beginning and the end of World War One have been ignored in NATO's strategic planning in regard to the Ukraine war. The author is a former Russia analyst for the CIA and is currently Grand Strategy director of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

EXPANSION OF NATO, RUSSOPHOBIA

NATO AND UKRAINIAN WAR.  See below: US War Against Russia and China, Opposition to NATO

AGREEMENT BETWEEN US AND USSR  THAT NATO WOULD NOT MOVE FARTHER EASTWARD.
A written agreement between the SOS Baker & the Soviet Govt:

https://scheerpost.com/2022/02/24/not-one-inch-eastward-how-the-war-in-ukraine-could-have-been-prevented-decades-ago/

1990s, Origins of the Ukraine War 1990s, NATO Expansion, President Clinton, Russia’s Objections

   OMNI’S anthologies on the US-NATO-Ukraine war vs. Russia have explored the history beyond the US/NATO/Ukraine/US Mainstream Media reports.  An article in the latest no. of The New Republic (July-August 2022) takes us back to the 1990s: “America’s Long Lost Weekend” by Walter Shapiro. 

     “If there was a pivotal moment in the deterioration of relations with Russia, it was probably Clinton’s cheerleading for NATO expansion into former Soviet bloc countries like Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, which formally occurred in 1999.  But the seeds had been planted much earlier, as Clinton had stressed to Polish President Lech Walesa on a visit to Warsaw in 19 94, that he strongly supported bringing Poland into the alliance.  But throughout the lengthy process, Clinton continually demonstrated a tin ear about Russia’s concerns for its security and prestige. . . .there was never a point when the Clinton administration seriously addressed the  legitimacy of some of the Russian president’s concerns about thrusting NATO eastward.  In a 1997 article, George Kennan, the nonagenarian architect of containment during the Cold War, bitterly called NATO expansion “’the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.’” (4-2-3)(--Dick)

AMERICAN EMPIRE, COMMENTARY, FINLAND, INTERNATIONAL, NATO, RUSSIA, SWEDEN, TURKEY

NATO Expands, Responding to War Caused by NATO Expansion.   Consortium News.  June 29, 2022.

At the same NATO summit, President Biden announced plans to ramp up U.S. military presence in Europe in response to the Ukraine war, writes Caitlin Johnstone.

War Against Russia and Africa

NATO IN EUROPE: LITHUANIA AND GERMANY

Johannes Stern.   “Chancellor Scholz in Lithuania: Germany Boosts Combat Troops for War against Russia.”  Editor.  Mronline.org (6-12-22). 

Originally published: World Socialist Web Site (WSWS)  on June 8, 2022 (more by World Socialist Web Site (WSWS))  |  (Posted Jun 11, 2022)

Strategy, WarEurope, GermanyNewswireChancellor Olaf Scholz, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia-Ukraine War

Germany is playing an increasingly aggressive role in NATO’s war offensive against Russia. During his visit to Lithuania on Tuesday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Germany would increase the number of its combat troops on the ground in that country.

Sweden Appears Poised to Join NATO as Part of Western Mobilization Against Russia.  By Andi Olluri.  CovertAction Magazine.May 28, 2022.

Debates in the Country Follow Narrow Lines, Defined by Government As Dissenting Voices, Are Silenced.

With great fanfare, Sweden has now (May 15) officially announced it seeks to apply for formal NATO membership.   The Ukraine War has provided the pretext for this announcement which has long been in the making and has been widely supported in the Swedish mainstream. . . .

The most respected liberal paper explained that “Western democracy stands against Putin’s neo-Stalinism,” and “there is no middle way, no compromise between these two worldviews.”^[3] Or the leading business analyst, Peter Nilsson, who is revered by everyone: “The production in the American, British, French and Swedish weapons industries need to continue booming” since “there is now no middle way. The world is…black-and-white”—just to quote some of the more moderate ones.^[4] […]

NATO IN ASIA

NATO V. RUSSIA AND CHINA

“NATO officially adds China to its list of enemies.”  Editor. Mronline.org (7-7-22)

Originally published: Liberation News  on June 30, 2022 by Sameena Rahman (more by Liberation News)  |  (Posted Jul 06, 2022)

WarAmericas, Asia, China, Europe, United StatesNewswireNew Cold War, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Leaders of the member countries of the imperialist NATO military alliance concluded their annual summit in Madrid today. This summit was a clear display of NATO’s commitment to continuously fuel the fire of international conflict as the major capitalist powers drag the world back into a Cold War-style period of global confrontation.

In preparation for the summit, NATO members prepared a new “Strategic Concept” document that described the alliance’s key goals moving forward. The Strategic Concept’s principal target is Russia, which it labels “the most significant and direct threat” to NATO. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg promised even more support for Ukraine’s military in its war with Russia.  But the Strategic Concept also included a new and highly notable addition to NATO’s official enemies list: China.  MORE  https://mronline.org/2022/07/06/nato-officially-adds-china-to-its-list-of-enemies/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nato-officially-adds-china-to-its-list-of-enemies&mc_cid=4e37f00244&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e

“Creating cold war conditions in Asia isn’t easy.”

M. K. Bhadrakumar.  Mronline.org (6-11-22).

Only three weeks remain for the summit meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in Madrid, which is expected to unveil a new Strategic Concept aimed at redefining “the security challenges facing the Alliance and outline the political and military tasks that NATO will carry out to address them.”

The Rise Of NATO In Africa

By Vijay Prashad, Struggle La Lucha. Popular Resistance.org (5-30-22).  -

Anxiety about the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) toward the Russian border is one of the causes of the current war in Ukraine. But this is not the only attempt at expansion by NATO, a treaty organization created in 1949 by the United States to project its military and political power over Europe. In 2001, NATO conducted an “out of area” military operation in Afghanistan, which lasted 20 years, and in 2011, NATO—at the urging of France—bombed Libya and overthrew its government. NATO military operations in Afghanistan and Libya were the prelude to discussions of a “Global NATO,” a project to use the NATO military alliance beyond its own charter obligations from the South China Sea to the Caribbean Sea.   MORE click on title or https://popularresistance.org/the-rise-of-nato-in-africa/

Andre Damon.  “Retired U.S. general calls for “coalition of the willing” for naval conflict with Russia.”  Editor.  Mronline.org (5-28-22). 

General Jack Keane calls for a “coalition of the willing”

Originally published: World Socialist Web Site (WSWS)  on May 26, 2022 (more by World Socialist Web Site (WSWS))  |  (Posted May 27, 2022)

Political Economy, State Repression, Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswireNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia-Ukraine War

The governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and other NATO members are preparing a major new stage of the U.S.-NATO war against Russia by using their warships to break the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports, creating the conditions for a direct shooting war between NATO and Russian naval forces.  This massive escalation by the U.S. and NATO is being billed as a “coalition of the willing,” echoing the words used by the Bush administration to describe the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  Retired four-star General Jack Keane, chairman of the Institute for the Study of War and chairman of AM General, the maker of the Humvee military vehicle, called on Wednesday for the creation of an “international coalition of warships led by the United States” to secure control over the Black Sea.  MORE https://mronline.org/2022/05/27/retired-u-s-general-calls-for-coalition-of-the-willing-for-naval-conflict-with-russia/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=retired-u-s-general-calls-for-coalition-of-the-willing-for-naval-conflict-with-russia&mc_cid=8f691c411b&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e

Seymour Hersh (interview).  “U.S. prefers frozen Germany over one not aiding Ukraine.”    Editor.  Mronline.org (690-23).  

Regarding the Nord Stream pipelines sabotage, American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh underlines that the United States would have rather seen Germany frozen over than see it not supporting Ukraine in the war.

Originally published: Al Mayadeen  on February 15, 2023 by Berliner Zeitung (more by Al Mayadeen)  |  (Posted Jun 08, 2023)

Movements, State Repression, Strategy, WarAmericas, Europe, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswireSeymour Hersh

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a press conference days after the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up that an important factor of Russia’s power had been taken away from President Vladimir Putin’s hand, famed U.S. investigative journalist and Pulitzer award winner Seymour Hersh told German newspaper Berliner Zeitung in an interview published on Tuesday.

Hersh recalled how Blinken said destroying the pipelines was a tremendous opportunity to deprive Russia of its ability to use its pipelines as a weapon, and it would no longer be able to use the pipelines to pressure Western Europe to end U.S. support of Ukraine in the war.

Additionally, Victoria Nuland, the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, said that “the [US] administration is very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2” would no longer be operational.

The reason for this decision, Hersh told the German daily, was that the war was not going well for the West, and the U.S. was scared that the cold winter would push Germany into lifting the sanctions imposed on the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, which was put on hold by Berlin in the wake of the Ukraine war.   MORE click on title

Rick Rozoff.  “NATO’s 1999 aggression against Yugoslavia: Global turning point.”  Mronline.org (3-23-23). 

Originally published: Anti-bellum  on March 20, 2023 (more by Anti-bellum)

Empire, History, State Repression, StrategyAmericas, Europe, Serbia, United States, YugoslaviaNewswireBelgrade Forum for a World of Equals, Generals and Admirals Association of Serbia, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Think Tanks, Veterans Association SUBNOR of Serbia

Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals.  March 19, 2023

This March 24th, the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, Generals and Admirals Association of Serbia, Veterans Association SUBNOR of Serbia and some other independent associations and think tanks, will mark the 24th anniversary of NATO’s aggression against Serbia and Montenegro (the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), honoring heroes fallen in the defense of the country as well as all the victims of this illegal and criminal act.

Djibo Sobukwe.   “NATO and Africa.”   Mronline.org (7-16-22). 

By Djibo Sobukwe (Posted Jul 15, 2022)

Originally published: Black Agenda Report  on July 13, 2022 (more by Black Agenda Report) . | 

Empire, Imperialism, Inequality, StrategyAfricaNewswireNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)

Djibo Sobukwe participated in a Canadian Foreign Policy Institute panel, “NATO and Global Empire ” on June 30, 2022. These are his remarks on NATO and Africa.

Greetings everyone. . .  
It is timely not only because NATO is concluding its meeting in Madrid as we speak, but also AFRICOM as one of the many arms of NATO  is conducting its yearly military exercises called “African Lion” on the African continent at this time.
Many people on this webinar probably know the background of NATO so I won’t repeat the history.  Since I wrote my article in Black Agenda Report back in February entitled, “NATO and AFRICA: A relationship of colonial violence and structural white supremacy,” two more European countries have applied for NATO membership, Sweden and Finland and as I understand they will be accepted. This will increase their membership from the founding twelve in 1949 to now 32.

Today, NATO has become a huge global axle in the wheel of the military industrial complex which includes more than 800 U.S. military bases around the world and bases or relationships with almost all African countries, all controlled by the U.S. empire for the purpose of full spectrum dominance , driven by the ferocious appetites of corporate capital.

Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein.  “NATO’s growing military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean (Part I, II & III).”   Editor.  Mronline.org (4-20-23).   
Originally published: Internationalist 360°  on April 15, 2023 by (more by Internationalist 360°) (Posted Apr 19, 2023)

Empire, Movements, State Repression, StrategyAmericas, Caribbean, Latin America, United StatesNewswireNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

At the end of last year, the United States had installed 12 military bases in Panama, 12 in Puerto Rico, 9 in Colombia, 8 in Peru, 3 in Honduras, 2 in Paraguay, as well as installations of this type in Aruba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Cuba (Guantanamo), and Peru among other countries, at the same time that it is orienting its search for the total coverage of the land and maritime surface of the region.

Peter Koenig, Global Research, UNAC.   “Nordic NATO Expansion – Or NATO Implosion?”
Finland shares a 1,340 km border with Russia. Thus, as a NATO country, it would become another real threat for Moscow. Also, during WWII, Finland allied with Nazi Germany fighting the Soviet Union, when the USSR lost some 27 million people, soldiers and civilians. Finland does not have a clean record vis-à-vis Russia.

On the other hand, Sweden shares no border with Russia and has not been at war with Russia in the last 300 years. Sweden like Finland, has not been threatened at all by Russia. So, Sweden teaming up with Finland against Russia – there is something quite weird going on. A country does not overnight seek or make an enemy, when there was absolutely not a minimum threat from the “assumed” enemy. What’s going on?

Given the circumstances of these two “neutral” countries suddenly changing from “neutral” to “aggressive” against Russia, must have other reasons than Russia attacking Ukraine. Both of these countries know exactly the background for the Russian war on Ukraine.

While war should under all circumstances be avoided, and replaced by negotiations, one cannot ignore Russia’s worries – preoccupations enhanced by the fact that many proposals for negotiations advanced by Russia before the war were rejected by Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy.

Likewise, after the beginning of the armed conflict, proposal for Peace Talks, notably by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, were, though first accepted, then rejected, which made Mr. Lavrov assume that Mr. Zelenskyy is not his sovereign own man, but follows instructions. See his interview with Al Arabia media below.

Could it be, or is it highly probable that both Finland and Sweden were coerced by Washington, and likely by Europe / NATO to decide and ask for immediate NATO membership? Sweden, because of the North Sea, where Russia has a dominant presence?   MORE   https://unac.notowar.net/2022/05/22/nordic-nato-expansion-or-nato-implosion/

AUSTRIA V. NATO

NATO is not totally for the Ukrainian War  v.  Russia.

“Austrian lawmakers walk out during Zelensky address to parliament.”   Editor.  Mronline.org (4-1-23).

The politicians' move comes in opposition to Zelensky's speech which "violated Austria’s principle of neutrality."

Originally published: Al Mayadeen  on March 30, 2023 by Agencies (more by Al Mayadeen)  |  (Posted Mar 31, 2023)

Culture, Movements, Strategy, WarAustria, Europe, Russia, UkraineNewswireFPOe leader Herbert Kickl, Freedom Party (FPOe), neutrality, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia-Ukraine War, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky

Austrian lawmakers from the opposition Freedom Party (FPOe) walked out of the lower house of Austria’s parliament during a virtual address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  The politicians stressed that they were opposing the speech because it disregarded Austria’s neutrality principle.  Zelensky, who is begging for more lethal weapons ahead of an expected counteroffensive this spring, joined Austria’s lower house’s morning session via video link.  Little signs with the party insignia and the phrases “space for neutrality” or “space for peace” were left on the desks of lawmakers who left the chamber. . . .

The big picture
When countries such as Switzerland and Sweden abandoned their neutrality policies under NATO’s pressure, one country refused to bend.  MORE  Austrian lawmakers walk out during Zelensky address to parliament | Al Mayadeen English   [Al Mayadeen is an Arab Independent Media Satellite Channel.]

US AND NATO MILITARISM: ARMS TRADE

“U.S. and NATO Allies Were Responsible for Nearly 65% of Global Arms Exports in 2018-22.”

Peoples Dispatch.  TRANSCEND Media Service.

14 Mar 2023 – The US share in global arms exports increased from 33% to 40% in 2018-22, and its ally France, the third-largest exporter of weapons, had its share increasing from roughly 7.1% to 11%.   Read more...

Kim Hoon.   “Is the trip of the secretary general of NATO aimed to instigate the creation of the Asian version of NATO?”   Editor.  Mronline.org (2-4-23).

The high-ranking chief of the military organization which turned Ukraine into a theatre of proxy war is flying into the Asia-Pacific region of the eastern hemisphere across the sea and land, which is not even part of its operational sphere. This fact itself gives rise to concern. 

World Beyond War.  Save Sinjajevina Campaign.

NATO Troops Arrived Last Night on the Mountains We’re Trying to Protect from Them.   This is a campaign to protect a beautiful inhabited mountain in Montenegro from being turned into a military base.

The people of Montenegro, led by the Save Sinjajevina campaign, have done everything people can do to prevent atrocities in so-called democracies. They’ve won over public opinion. They’ve elected officials promising to protect their mountains. They’ve lobbied, organized public protests, and made themselves into human shields. They show no signs of planning to give up, much less to believe the UK’s official position that this mountain destruction is environmentalism, while NATO has been threatening to use Sinjajevina for war training in May 2023!

Last night, 250 NATO soldiers arrived in Sinjajevina! They claim that they will do no artillery shooting, just alpinistic exercises. The Prime Minister of Montenegro Dritan Abazovic had promised on television two weeks ago that there would not be any military activities in Sinjajevina.  He’s broken another promise.  Six members of Save Sinjajevina are now in place where they had a large resistance camp in 2020. Despite temperatures of -10ºC they are organizing a nonviolent resistance effort yet again. The place where the people are gathering is called Margita. They have celebrated the anniversary of their resistance at that spot. They have engraved on a rock there with golden letters a phrase of legend dedicating it to resistance.

Click here for videos here of helicopter and of an Unwelcome notice written in the snow.

For background information, a petition to sign, a form to donate, and more photos and videos, go to https://worldbeyondwar.org/sinjajevina.   We need as many people as possible to sign the petition and to make donations. Please spread this far and wide:  https://worldbeyondwar.org/sinjajevina  
Thank you!  Peace!   World Beyond War

Vanessa Beeley  “Journalists who challenge NATO narratives are now ‘information terrorists’.”  Editor.  Mronline.org (8-30-22). 

We will have to answer to the 'law' as 'war criminals'

Originally published: August 22, 2022 by Vanessa Beeley (more by Vanessa Beeley) (Posted Aug 29, 2022)

Culture, Imperialism, Inequality, WarGlobalNewswireNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

A U.S. state department sponsored round table on ‘countering disinformation’ was recently held at the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine.

“Information terrorists should know that they will have to answer to the law as war criminals.” Andrii Shapovalov.

Andrii Shapovalov, head of the Ukrainian Centre for Combatting Disinformation emphasized that those who ‘deliberately spread disinformation are information terrorists’. Shapovalov recommended changes to the legislation to crack down on these terrorists – reminiscent of the pre-WW2 Nazi Germany suppression of media and information channels. Shapovalov determined that ‘information terrorists should know that they will have to answer to the law as war criminals’.

It goes without saying that the crushing of dissent is essential for public support for NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine to be maintained. Russian media has already been wiped from the Western-controlled internet sphere. Ukrainian ‘kill lists’ such as the infamous Myrotvorets already include the courageous Canadian independent journalist Eva Bartlett and outspoken Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters. . . .

Bartlett was also doxxed on Twitter by former UK Conservative Party MP Louise Mensch who alerted Ukrainian Special Forces to her presence in Donetsk. A few days later an attack was carried out on the hotel in Donetsk housing multiple journalists including Bartlett – coincidence?

German journalist Alina Lipp has been effectively sanctioned and threatened with prosecution by the German government for reporting on the daily atrocities committed by Ukrainian Nazi forces against civilians in Donetsk and Lughansk. Lipp told . . . .

British journalist Graham Philips has illegally been sanctioned by the UK regime without any investigation or Philips being given a ‘right to reply’. Most mainstream media reports on this violation of his human rights describe Philips as ‘one of the most prominent pro-Kremlin online conspiracy theorists’. A familiar smear deployed by NATO-aligned media outlets to dehumanise and discredit challenging voices.

Philips like many other journalists being targeted lives in Donbass which has been threatened with brutal ethnic cleansing by the NATO proxy Ukrainian Nazi and ultra-nationalist forces since Washington’s Victoria Nuland- engineered coup in 2014.

These journalists transmit the voices of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who have been subjected to horrendous war crimes, torture, detention and persecution for eight years and ignored by the West. For this they are now to be designated ‘information terrorists’ – because they expose terrorism sanctioned by NATO member states.

. . . .MORE https://mronline.org/2022/08/29/journalists-who-challenge-nato-narratives-are-now-information-terrorists/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=journalists-who-challenge-nato-narratives-are-now-information-terrorists&mc_cid=018eafe7ac&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e

NATO AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS

“New US nuclear warheads coming to Europe.”

And what we can do about it.

NUCLEAR RISK

 Robin Forsberg, Aku Kähkönen, Jason Moyer.   December 8, 2022.    “If Finland joins NATO, it needs a new nuclear weapons policy.”  Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) (12-12-22).   Finland must engage head-on in a policy debate about nuclear weapons to avoid a political backlash at home after it joins NATO, write three experts. Read more.

[Finland has joined NATO.]

Resistance, Opposition to NATO War

“Re: A post worth sharing: Chomsky and Barsamian, In Ukraine, Diplomacy Has Been Ruled Out.”

<philcsc117@icloud.com> wrote:

I read this post and wanted to share it with you. Here's the link: https://countercurrents.org/2022/06/chomsky-and-barsamian-in-ukraine-diplomacy-has-been-ruled-out/

“Chomsky and Barsamian, In Ukraine, Diplomacy Has Been Ruled Out” by Noam Chomsky interviewed by David Barsamian.— 17/06/2022.

David Barsamian: Let’s head into the most obvious nightmare of this moment, the war in Ukraine and its effects globally. But first a little background. Let’s start with President George H.W. Bush’s assurance to then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not move “one inch to the east” — and that pledge has been verified. My question to you is, why didn’t Gorbachev get that in writing?
[US/NATO agreement not to expand]
Noam Chomsky: He accepted a gentleman’s agreement, which is not that uncommon in diplomacy. Shake-of-the-hand. Furthermore, having it on paper would have made no difference whatsoever. Treaties that are on paper are torn up all the time. What matters is good faith. And in fact, H.W. Bush, the first Bush, did honor the agreement explicitly. He even moved toward instituting a partnership in peace, which would accommodate the countries of Eurasia. NATO wouldn’t be disbanded but would be marginalized. Countries like Tajikistan, for example, could join without formally being part of NATO. And Gorbachev approved of that. It would have been a step toward creating what he called a common European home with no military alliances.

Clinton in his first couple of years also adhered to it. What the specialists say is that by about 1994, Clinton started to, as they put it, talk from both sides of his mouth. To the Russians he was saying: Yes, we’re going to adhere to the agreement. To the Polish community in the United States and other ethnic minorities, he was saying: Don’t worry, we’ll incorporate you within NATO. By about 1996-97, Clinton said this pretty explicitly to his friend Russian President Boris Yeltsin, whom he had helped win the 1996 election. He told Yeltsin: Don’t push too hard on this NATO business. We’re going to expand but I need it because of the ethnic vote in the United States.
[Thumbnail sketch of NATO expansion; Western provocation]
In 1997, Clinton invited the so-called Visegrad countries— Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania — to join NATO. The Russians didn’t like it but didn’t make much of a fuss. Then the Baltic nations joined, again the same thing. In 2008, the second Bush, who was quite different from the first, invited Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. Every U.S. diplomat understood very well that Georgia and Ukraine were red lines for Russia. They’ll tolerate the expansion elsewhere, but these are in their geostrategic heartland and they’re not going to tolerate expansion there. To continue with the story, the Maidan uprising took place in 2014, expelling the pro-Russian president and Ukraine moved toward the West.

From 2014, the U.S. and NATO began to pour arms into Ukraine— advanced weapons, military training, joint military exercises, moves to integrate Ukraine into the NATO military command. There’s no secret about this. It was quite open. Recently, the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, bragged about it. He said: This is what we were doing since 2014. Well, of course, this is very consciously, highly provocative. They knew that they were encroaching on what every Russian leader regarded as an intolerable move. France and Germany vetoed it in 2008, but under U.S. pressure, it was kept on the agenda. And NATO, meaning the United States, moved to accelerate the de facto integration of Ukraine into the NATO military command.

In 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky was elected with an overwhelming majority — I think about 70% of the vote — on a peace platform, a plan to implement peace with Eastern Ukraine and Russia, to settle the problem. He began to move forward on it and, in fact, tried to go to the Donbas, the Russian-oriented eastern region, to implement what’s called the Minsk II agreement. It would have meant a kind of federalization of Ukraine with a degree of autonomy for the Donbas, which is what they wanted. Something like Switzerland or Belgium. He was blocked by right-wing militias which threatened to murder him if he persisted with his effort.

Well, he’s a courageous man. He could have gone forward if he had had any backing from the United States. The U.S. refused. No backing, nothing, which meant he was left to hang out to dry and had to back off. The U.S. was intent on this policy of integrating Ukraine step by step into the NATO military command. That accelerated further when President Biden was elected. In September 2021, you could read it on the White House website. It wasn’t reported but, of course, the Russians knew it. Biden announced a program, a joint statement to accelerate the process of military training, military exercises, more weapons as part of what his administration called an “enhanced program” of preparation for NATO membership.

It accelerated further in November. This was all before the invasion. Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed what was called a charter, which essentially formalized and extended this arrangement. A spokesman for the State Department conceded that before the invasion, the U.S. refused to discuss any Russian security concerns. All of this is part of the background.

On February 24th, Putin invaded, a criminal invasion. These serious provocations provide no justification for it. If Putin had been a statesman, what he would have done is something quite different. He would have gone back to French President Emmanuel Macron, grasped his tentative proposals, and moved to try to reach an accommodation with Europe, to take steps toward a European common home.

The U.S., of course, has always been opposed to that. This goes way back in Cold War history to French President De Gaulle’s initiatives to establish an independent Europe. In his phrase “from the Atlantic to the Urals,” integrating Russia with the West, which was a very natural accommodation for trade reasons and, obviously, security reasons as well. So, had there been any statesmen within Putin’s narrow circle, they would have grasped Macron’s initiatives and experimented to see whether, in fact, they could integrate with Europe and avert the crisis. Instead, what he chose was a policy which, from the Russian point of view, was total imbecility. Apart from the criminality of the invasion, he chose a policy that drove Europe deep into the pocket of the United States. In fact, it is even inducing Sweden and Finland to join NATO — the worst possible outcome from the Russian point of view, quite apart from the criminality of the invasion, and the very serious losses that Russia is suffering because of that.
]Summary]
So, criminality and stupidity on the Kremlin side, severe provocation on the U.S. side. That’s the background that has led to this. Can we try to bring this horror to an end? Or should we try to perpetuate it? Those are the choices.
[Ending the War: Diplomacy.  US/Western choice: bigotry, war] 
There’s only one way to bring it to an end. That’s diplomacy. Now, diplomacy, by definition, means both sides accept it. They don’t like it, but they accept it as the least bad option. It would offer Putin some kind of escape hatch. That’s one possibility. The other is just to drag it out and see how much everybody will suffer, how many Ukrainians will die, how much Russia will suffer, how many millions of people will starve to death in Asia and Africa, how much we’ll proceed toward heating the environment to the point where there will be no possibility for a livable human existence. Those are the options. Well, with near 100% unanimity, the United States and most of Europe want to pick the no-diplomacy option. It’s explicit. We have to keep going to hurt Russia.

You can read columns in the New York Times, the London Financial Times, all over Europe. A common refrain is: we’ve got to make sure that Russia suffers. It doesn’t matter what happens to Ukraine or anyone else. Of course, this gamble assumes that if Putin is pushed to the limit, with no escape, forced to admit defeat, he’ll accept that and not use the weapons he has to devastate Ukraine.

There are a lot of things that Russia hasn’t done. Western analysts are rather surprised by it. Namely, they’ve not attacked the supply lines from Poland that are pouring weapons into Ukraine. They certainly could do it. That would very soon bring them into direct confrontation with NATO, meaning the U.S. Where it goes from there, you can guess. Anyone who’s ever looked at war games knows where it’ll go — up the escalatory ladder toward terminal nuclear war.
[Summary: US/West for war to weaken Russia and risk holocaust.]
So, those are the games we’re playing with the lives of Ukrainians, Asians, and Africans, the future of civilization, in order to weaken Russia, to make sure that they suffer enough. Well, if you want to play that game, be honest about it. There’s no moral basis for it. In fact, it’s morally horrendous. And the people who are standing on a high horse about how we’re upholding principle are moral imbeciles when you think about what’s involved. 

[2^nd topic: Russian and US atrocities.]

Barsamian: In the media, and among the political class in the United States, and probably in Europe, there’s much moral outrage about Russian barbarity, war crimes, and atrocities. No doubt they are occurring as they do in every war. Don’t you find that moral outrage a bit selective though?

Chomsky: The moral outrage is quite in place. There should be moral outrage. But you go to the Global South, they just can’t believe what they’re seeing. They condemn the war, of course. It’s a deplorable crime of aggression. Then they look at the West and say: What are you guys talking about? This is what you do to us all the time.

It’s kind of astonishing to see the difference in commentary. So, you read the New York Times and their big thinker, Thomas Friedman. He wrote a column a couple of weeks ago in which he just threw up his hands in despair. He said: What can we do? How can we live in a world that has a war criminal? We’ve never experienced this since Hitler. There’s a war criminal in Russia. We’re at a loss as to how to act. We’ve never imagined the idea that there could be a war criminal anywhere.

When people in the Global South hear this, they don’t know whether to crack up in laughter or ridicule. We have war criminals walking all over Washington. Actually, we know how to deal with our war criminals. In fact, it happened on the twentieth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. Remember, this was an entirely unprovoked invasion, strongly opposed by world opinion. There was an interview with the perpetrator, George W. Bush, who then went on to invade Iraq, a major war criminal, in the style section of the Washington Post — an interview with, as they described it, this lovable goofy grandpa who was playing with his grandchildren, making jokes, showing off the portraits he painted of famous people he’d met. Just a beautiful, friendly environment.

So, we know how to deal with war criminals. Thomas Friedman is wrong. We deal with them very well.

Or take probably the major war criminal of the modern period, Henry Kissinger. We deal with him not only politely, but with great admiration. This is the man after all who transmitted the order to the Air Force, saying that there should be massive bombing of Cambodia — “anything that flies on anything that moves” was his phrase. I don’t know of a comparable example in the archival record of a call for mass genocide. And it was implemented with very intensive bombing of Cambodia. We don’t know much about it because we don’t investigate our own crimes. But Taylor Owen and Ben Kiernan, serious historians of Cambodia, have described it. Then there’s our role in overthrowing Salvador Allende’s government in Chile and instituting a vicious dictatorship there, and on and on. So, we do know how to deal with our war criminals.

Still, Thomas Friedman can’t imagine that there’s anything like Ukraine. Nor was there any commentary on what he wrote, which means it was regarded as quite reasonable. You can hardly use the word selectivity. It’s beyond astonishing. So, yes, the moral outrage is perfectly in place. It’s good that Americans are finally beginning to show some outrage about major war crimes committed by someone else.

[3^rd topic: Russian threat and doublethink.]

Barsamian: I’ve got a little puzzle for you. It’s in two parts. Russia’s military is inept and incompetent. Its soldiers have very low morale and are poorly led. Its economy ranks with Italy’s and Spain’s. That’s one part. The other part is Russia is a military colossus that threatens to overwhelm us. So, we need more weapons. Let’s expand NATO. How do you reconcile those two contradictory thoughts?

Chomsky: Those two thoughts are standard in the entire West. I just had a long interview in Sweden about their plans to join NATO. I pointed out that Swedish leaders have two contradictory ideas, the two you mentioned. One, gloating over the fact that Russia has proven itself to be a paper tiger that can’t conquer cities a couple of miles from its border defended by a mostly citizens’ army. So, they’re completely militarily incompetent. The other thought is: they’re poised to conquer the West and destroy us.

George Orwell had a name for that. He called it doublethink, the capacity to have two contradictory ideas in your mind and believe both of them. Orwell mistakenly thought that was something you could only have in the ultra-totalitarian state he was satirizing in 1984. He was wrong. You can have it in free democratic societies. We’re seeing a dramatic example of it right now. Incidentally, this is not the first time.

Such doublethink is, for instance, characteristic of Cold War thinking. You go way back to the major Cold War document of those years, NSC-68 in 1950. Look at it carefully and it showed that Europe alone, quite apart from the United States, was militarily on a par with Russia. But of course, we still had to have a huge rearmament program to counter the Kremlin design for world conquest.

That’s one document and it was a conscious approach. Dean Acheson, one of the authors, later said that it’s necessary to be “clearer than truth,” his phrase, in order to bludgeon the mass mind of government. We want to drive through this huge military budget, so we have to be “clearer than truth” by concocting a slave state that’s about to conquer the world. Such thinking runs right through the Cold War. I could give you many other examples, but we’re seeing it again now quite dramatically. And the way you put it is exactly correct: these two ideas are consuming the West.
[Return to first, the main topic]
Barsamian: It’s also interesting that diplomat George Kennan foresaw the danger of NATO moving its borders east in a very prescient op-ed he wrote that appeared in The New York Times in 1997.

Chomsky: Kennan had also been opposed to NSC-68. In fact, he had been the director of the State Department Policy Planning Staff. He was kicked out and replaced by Paul Nitze. [Kennan] was regarded as too soft for such a hard world. He was a hawk, radically anticommunist, pretty brutal himself with regard to U.S. positions, but he realized that military confrontation with Russia made no sense.

Russia, he thought, would ultimately collapse from internal contradictions, which turned out to be correct. But he was considered a dove all the way through. In 1952, he was in favor of the unification of Germany outside the NATO military alliance. That was actually Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin’s proposal as well. Kennan was ambassador to the Soviet Union and a Russia specialist.

Stalin’s initiative. Kennan’s proposal.  Some Europeans supported it. It would have ended the Cold War. It would have meant a neutralized Germany, non-militarized and not part of any military bloc. It was almost totally ignored in Washington.

There was one foreign policy specialist, a respected one, James Warburg, who wrote a book about it. It’s worth reading. It’s called Germany: Key to Peace. In it, he urged that this idea be taken seriously. He was disregarded, ignored, ridiculed. I mentioned it a couple of times and was ridiculed as a lunatic, too. How could you believe Stalin? Well, the archives came out. Turns out he was apparently serious. You now read the leading Cold War historians, people like Melvin Leffler, and they recognize that there was a real opportunity for a peaceful settlement at the time, which was dismissed in favor of militarization, of a huge expansion of the military budget.

Now, let’s go to the Kennedy administration. When John Kennedy came into office, Nikita Khrushchev, leading Russia at the time, made a very important offer to carry out large-scale mutual reductions in offensive military weapons, which would have meant a sharp relaxation of tensions. The United States was far ahead militarily then. Khrushchev wanted to move toward economic development in Russia and understood that this was impossible in the context of a military confrontation with a far richer adversary. So, he first made that offer to President Dwight Eisenhower, who paid no attention. It was then offered to Kennedy and his administration responded with the largest peacetime buildup of military force in history — even though they knew that the United States was already far ahead.

The U.S. concocted a “missile gap.” Russia was about to overwhelm us with its advantage in missiles. Well, when the missile gap was exposed, it turned out to be in favor of the U.S. Russia had maybe four missiles exposed on an airbase somewhere.

You can go on and on like this. The security of the population is simply not a concern for policymakers. Security for the privileged, the rich, the corporate sector, arms manufacturers, yes, but not the rest of us. This doublethink is constant, sometimes conscious, sometimes not. It’s just what Orwell described, hyper-totalitarianism in a free society.

Barsamian: In an article in Truthout, you quote Eisenhower’s 1953 “Cross of Iron” speech. What did you find of interest there?

Chomsky: You should read it and you’ll see why it’s interesting. It’s the best speech he ever made. This was 1953 when he was just taking office. Basically, what he pointed out was that militarization was a tremendous attack on our own society. He — or whoever wrote the speech — put it pretty eloquently. One jet plane means this many fewer schools and hospitals. Every time we’re building up our military budget, we’re attacking ourselves.

He spelled it out in some detail, calling for a decline in the military budget. He had a pretty awful record himself, but in this respect he was right on target. And those words should be emblazoned in everyone’s memory. Recently, in fact, Biden proposed a huge military budget. Congress expanded it even beyond his wishes, which represents a major attack on our society, exactly as Eisenhower explained so many years ago.

The excuse: the claim that we have to defend ourselves from this paper tiger, so militarily incompetent it can’t move a couple of miles beyond its border without collapse. So, with a monstrous military budget, we have to severely harm ourselves and endanger the world, wasting enormous resources that will be necessary if we’re going to deal with the severe existential crises we face. Meanwhile, we pour taxpayer funds into the pockets of the fossil-fuel producers so that they can continue to destroy the world as quickly as possible. That’s what we’re witnessing with the vast expansion of both fossil-fuel production and military expenditures. There are people who are happy about this. Go to the executive offices of Lockheed Martin, ExxonMobil, they’re ecstatic. It’s a bonanza for them. They’re even being given credit for it. Now, they’re being lauded for saving civilization by destroying the possibility for life on Earth. Forget the Global South. If you imagine some extraterrestrials, if they existed, they’d think we were all totally insane. And they’d be right.

David Barsamian is the founder and host of the radio program Alternative Radio and has published books with Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Edward Said, and Howard Zinn, among others. His latest book with Noam Chomsky is Chronicles of Dissent (Haymarket Books, 2021) Alternative Radio, established in 1986, is a weekly one-hour public-affairs program offered free to all public radio stations in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Noam Chomsky is institute professor (emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and laureate professor of linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury chair in the program in environment and social justice at the University of Arizona. He is the author of numerous best-selling political books, which have been translated into scores of languages, including most recently Optimism Over Despair, The Precipice  and, with Marv Waterstone, Consequences of Capitalism.

Copyright 2022 Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian

Contents of NATO ANTHOLOGY #1

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2022/05/omni-nato-anthology-1-may-20-2022.html

Maps of NATO Expansion (add Sweden and Finland)

Harry Targ.  History of NATO

Ratcheting up Cold War Two
Rick Rozoff.  “NATO’s War against Yugoslavia” 1999.
Rozoff.  NATO “Bombing of Chinese Embassy” 1999.

Kerstin Tuomala.  NATO-US War Game in Finland 2017.

Ukraine Maidan Coup 2014.

Patrick Lawrence.  “The New Iron Curtain.”
Moving Along Russia’s Southern Border.  Jeremy Kuzmarov. 
   Kazakhstan.

Geraldina Colotti.  “NATO Tentacles from Europe to Latin America.”

NATO Military Drills in Estonia Near Russian Border,
   Russia Warns Response 2022.
US “40 Billion More for Ukraine War” 2022.

Ending NATO
Bruce Gagnon.  “NATO ‘Master Plan’ Aimed at Russia.”

Dennis Kucinich.  “NATO Talks a Sham” 2012.

War Resisters League in Chicago, May 2012.

Peter Kornbluh.  US and Russia.

END OMNI NATO ANTHOLOGY #2, 2023