This is Eve. NATO is pushing the boundaries of further escalating the collective conflict of the West, but that doesn’t mean hawks haven’t repeatedly tried to use these meetings to plot against the general public. With both warmongers Biden and Macron looking shaky, this meeting may be on too shaky a political footing to produce any lasting commitments. Either way, this NATO summit is worth watching.
By Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies The Ukraine War: Understanding a Pointless Conflictto be published by OR Books in November 2022. Medea Benjamin is CODEPINK for Peaceand author of several books, Inside Iran: The True History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of IranNicholas J.S. Davies is an independent journalist and researcher at CODEPINK. Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq
Anti-NATO protest in Chicago, 2012. Photo by Julie Darmanski.
After NATO’s devastating illegal invasion, Yugoslavia, Libya and AfghanistanOn July 9th, NATO plans to invade Washington, DC. The good news is that they will only occupy Washington for three days, the British won’t burn down the US Capitol like they did in 1814, and the Germans are still pretending to be compliant. I don’t know These are the people who blew up the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, so expect grinning photo ops and over-the-top mutual celebration orgies.
of detail Part of the agenda for NATO’s Washington Summit was revealed at the end of May when NATO foreign ministers met in Prague, where NATO will accuse China of supplying dual-use weapons technology to Russia, drawing member states into a cold war between the US and China, as well as unveiling a mysterious “drone wall” in the Baltic states and a new NATO initiative to spend our tax money building an expensive-looking “integrated air defense system” across Europe.
But the main purpose of the summit will likely be a superficial display of unity, to convince the public that NATO and Ukraine can defeat Russia and that negotiating with Russia would be tantamount to surrender.
On the surface, that should be hard to stomach. The only thing most Americans agree on about the Ukraine war is that they support a negotiated peace. When asked in a November 2023 interview, The Economist/YouGov In response to the poll question, “Do you support or oppose Ukraine and Russia agreeing to a ceasefire now?” 68% answered “support,” while only 8% said “oppose,” and 24% said they didn’t know.
But while President Biden and NATO leaders continue to have endless discussions about different ways to escalate the war, especially April 2022, November 2022 and January 2024,their Failed war plans Ukraine’s negotiating position will become even worse.
The upshot of this non-strategy is that Ukraine will only be allowed to negotiate with Russia when it faces total defeat and has no one left to negotiate with – the very surrender that NATO says it wants to avoid.
As other countries have pointed out at the UN General AssemblyThe US and NATO’s rejection of negotiations and diplomacy, in favor of a long-term war that they hope will ultimately “weaken” Russia, is a clear violation of the legal obligations of UN member states to “peacefully resolve disputes.” Chapter 6 As stated in Article 33(1) of the Charter of the United Nations:
“Parties to a dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall first seek a solution by negotiation, investigation, conciliation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional organizations or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.”
But NATO leaders did not come to Washington to discuss how to comply with international obligations and conduct peace talks in Ukraine. Instead, NATO defense ministers warned that NATO’s military assistance to Ukraine “will be “avoided.” A stronger foundation For many years to come.”
of effort The headquarters will be located at the US military base in Wiesbaden, Germany, and approximately 700 staff members will participate.Against Trump“NATO will support Ukraine in case Trump wins the election and seeks U.S. support.”
At the summit, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg wants NATO leaders to commit to providing Ukraine with $43 billion worth of equipment annually indefinitely. Echoing George Orwell’s “war is peace” doublethink, Stoltenberg said, “The paradox is that the longer we plan and the longer we fight (the war), the sooner Ukraine will have peace.”
The summit is also expected to discuss ways to bring Ukraine closer to NATO membership, but as Ukrainian neutrality is Russia’s main war aim, the move would guarantee the continuation of the war.
Ian Davis of NATO Watches reportNATO rhetoric repeats the same lines he heard during the 20-year war in Afghanistan: “The Taliban (now Russia) can’t wait for us.” But this vague hope that the other side will eventually give up is not a strategy.
There is no evidence that Ukraine is different from Afghanistan. The US and NATO are making the same assumptions and will have the same results. The underlying assumption is that NATO’s high GDP, lavish and corrupt military budget, and obsession with expensive weapons technology must somehow magically lead Ukraine to victory over Russia.
When the US and NATO finally admitted defeat in Afghanistan, it was the Afghans who paid the blood price for Western folly, and the US and NATO war machine, having learned nothing and reaped no political gain, simply moved on to the next “challenge.” Complete denial.
Less than three years after the defeat in Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin recently It is called NATO is “the strongest and most successful alliance in history,” and the fact that most Ukrainians support NATO bodes well for Ukraine’s future. I’m not interested Throw your life into NATO’s dustbin.
in article “The Western plan remains strategically backward: support for Kiev has become an end in itself, divorced from any coherent strategy for ending the war,” Mark Episkopos of the Quincy Institute wrote in an essay titled “The New Theory of Ukraine Victory Is the Same Old One.”
“The key to effective[Western]influence,” Episkopos concluded, “is ultimately to abandon a zero-sum framework of victory.”
I would add that this was a trap set not only by the US and UK for Ukraine but also for its NATO allies. By refusing to support Ukraine at the April 2022 negotiating table and instead demanding this “zero-sum framework for victory” as a condition for NATO support, the US and UK escalated what should have been a very short war into a drawn-out, potentially nuclear war between NATO and Russia.
Turkish Leaders and Diplomats Complained how their American and British allies sabotaged their peacemaking efforts; France, Italy and Germany They struggled for a month or two, but soon surrendered to the war camp.
When NATO leaders meet in Washington, what should they do but figure out how to comply? Article 33(1) The UN’s activities, as enshrined in Article 1 of the UN Charter, are a sobering examination of how the organization that claims to be a force for peace has escalated unwinnable wars and driven nations to ruin.
The fundamental question is whether NATO can be a force for peace or whether it will remain merely a dangerous and subordinate extension of U.S. military power.
We believe that NATO is an anachronism in today’s multipolar world — an aggressive, expansionist military alliance whose inherent institutional myopia and narrow, self-serving threat assessments are leading us all to endless war and potential nuclear annihilation.
We suggest that the only way NATO can become a true force for peace is for it to, by this time next year, take the same step its counterpart, the Warsaw Pact, did in 1991 and declare finally the dissolution of what Secretary Austin would have been wise to call “the most dangerous military alliance in history.”
But the peoples of the world who suffer under the grip of militarism cannot afford to wait for NATO to give up and go away on its own. Our fellow citizens and political leaders need to hear from all of us about the dangers posed by this irresponsible arsenal of nuclear weapons. would you like to joinAnd I intend to use this NATO summit to sound the alarm, both in person and online.
