The Case for Disbanding NATO

As a collective security agreement, NATO is dead.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was first organized to counter the threat (whether real or imagined) of an expansionist Soviet Union. Seventeen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union however, NATO still exists and far from providing collective security it now serves as a tool of American expansionism.

If the NATO treaty is to be interpreted as it has historically been presented whereby NATO allies are required to act in the defense of any other ally, then the foreign relations of the United States present an ever growing threat to the peace and security of European nations. While it is undeniable that NATO did serve its purpose, NATO has transformed Europe into a buffer zone for the protection of the United States.

European security experts in whole must be considering already the threat posed by American diplomatic recklessness. After all, if the United States is going to continue with a foreign policy that has it provoking war against Russia, igniting conflict in Pakistan, threatening Iran, stoking Venezuela, interfering in Bolivia, and unilaterally invading two countries, Europe must reassess its membership in this organization for its own good.

Surely it did not escape the attention of those in the know that the United States has repeatedly shown an utter disregard for the founding principles of NATO cooperative arrangement. Article 1 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the most clear example which states:

"The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."

In just those two lines I have bolded we find Iraq and Iran respectively. If the goal is that “peace and security and justice” be preserved, the United States has made a joke of this document’s original intentions. Surely, any such action by any European nation would have immediately been visited by anger from its members, but the way in which the U.S. carries itself across sovereign lines and against United Nations resolutions has only been met by a deafening silence from the European Community.

Lets be clear, any treaty which endangers the territorial peace of Europe and binds European armed forces to an American command and American foreign interest policy, is an ill-conceived treaty.

Currently NATO Allies are playing a game of chicken against Russia. Would any one of these nations other than the United States, really believe that they would be in the same situation otherwise. Russia can be a bully, but it’s an honest bully. You know when Russia is bullying you, I’m afraid however that Europe has lost the ability to tell when the U.S. bullies them.

Take the installation of the missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The U.S. claims these are meant to deter an Iranian attack against Europe, which is simply nonsense. Anti-Iranian missile facilities should be in Turkey, not Eastern Europe. The placement of these has been widely derided as an anti-Russian defense, but Europe has remained silent on the issue tacitly approving it all the while making themselves a target should US-Russian relations break down into war.

Meanwhile, the US has actively pushed for the addition of Georgia and Ukraine as full members of the NATO Alliance, a decision which will be NATO’s last. Ukraine, a nuclear power is too close for the comfort of Russia. Despite Russian protests the United States is intent on moving forward. Nevermind that the US would not tolerate a similar move by Russia in the Western Hemisphere, nevermind that the US promised not to expand NATO or that both Ukraine and Georgia are only nominal democracies. Europe remains silent as the continent bows down to America’s most aggressive foreign policy since its invasion of Mexico in 1846.

NATO as an American strategy surely served to benefit Europe when it was most needed. Now that strategy simply ensures that the only viable opposition to the US is dressed up as a threat to all European nations.

Europe must remove itself from NATO and reorganize itself as a third-party military alliance. European security and peace will only be ensured by European military independence. Let NATO die, before it kills us all.

184 Countries call for end of Cuban Embargo

For 15 years, every year, the United Nations General Assembly has voted on the issue of the Cuban Embargo imposed unilaterally by the United States. This year's vote was no different with 184 countries calling the embargo an illegal act that must come to an end.

Voting for the measure has become a tradition at the United Nations where Cuban and American dignitaries trade barbs like in a game of ping pong. This year was no different with the US calling for democracy in Cuba and Cuba calling out the hypocrisy of American policies around the world. The vote carried only one abstention and four votes against. Micronesia abstained, while the United States, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Israel voted against lifting the embargo.

The vote also reminds us of the innate inequalities present in the United nations as a democratic body. When 184 countries, which include Russia, China, and EU members, are unable change such an obvious act of imperialism as is the embargo, there is no more proof needed to say that the United nations must be changed. However that change must come from the bottom not from the top.

Calls for reform are now being fielded by the Secretary General, but only that one proposed by the United States is being given any attention or hopes for ratification.

The Non-Aligned Movement must step forward and reclaim its sovereignty, by first withdrawing from the UN as a form of protest until the General Assembly is given the right to veto the Security Council, as any congress or parliament gets to veto its executive. Only then will a palpable change come to the affairs of the world. And if the United States is truly interested in democracy it must allow this change to occur.

[From BBC] Biofuels 'crime against humanity'

[Editor's Note: This story is of particular interest to me for two reasons; first, this is exactly what Fidel Castro wrote about a few months ago in Where have the bees gone. Also this is impotant because its a growing trend urged on by the success of Brazil's sugar ethanol fuel production which has made it relatively energy independent. In other words the fact that the UN & the IMF are in agreement with Castro should tell some doubters that we may be facing a problem.]

By: Grant Ferrett at BBCNews
A United Nations expert has condemned the growing use of crops to produce biofuels as a replacement for petrol as a crime against humanity.

The UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, said he feared biofuels would bring more hunger. The growth in the production of biofuels has helped to push the price of some crops to record levels.

Mr Ziegler's remarks, made at the UN headquarters in New York, are clearly designed to grab attention. He complained of an ill-conceived dash to convert foodstuffs such as maize and sugar into fuel, which created a recipe for disaster.

Food price rises

It was, he said, a crime against humanity to divert arable land to the production of crops which are then burned for fuel. He called for a five-year ban on the practice.

Within that time, according to Mr Ziegler, technological advances would enable the use of agricultural waste, such as corn cobs and banana leaves, rather than crops themselves to produce fuel. The growth in the production of biofuels has been driven, in part, by the desire to find less environmentally-damaging alternatives to oil.

The United States is also keen to reduce its reliance on oil imported from politically unstable regions. But the trend has contributed to a sharp rise in food prices as farmers, particularly in the US, switch production from wheat and soya to corn, which is then turned into ethanol.

Mr Ziegler is not alone in warning of the problem. The IMF last week voiced concern that the increasing global reliance on grain as a source of fuel could have serious implications for the world's poor.

Story from BBC NEWS:HEREPublished: 2007/10/27 06:37:26 GMT

An Independent Kurdistan

Here on Latino Insurgent, I have at times discussed the movement for the independence of Kurdistan as a possible variable in the Middle East that is often ignored by most other media outlets. For the record, the Latino Insurgent blog supports the independence and self-determination struggle of the people of Kurdistan.

Despite the implications that this may have on other affairs in the region, the freedom of the people of Kurdistan cannot be delayed or abridged simply because it may be inconvenient to other nations and their interests. The right to self-determination is not negotiable. Hopefully, perhaps in a perfect world, this can be accomplished without violence.

The following two videos are interesting to this end. The first is an official video professionally produced by the Kurdish government. The second is an amateur video. In both videos there is an undeniable nationalist sentiment. That sentiment is much more subdued in the first than in the second, but certainly present.

[Article from Green Left Weekly] One Last Favor: Australia, Cuba, and the United States

by Tim Anderson
Green Left Weekly (radical newspaper) via WorldPress.org
New South Wales, Australia
October 17, 2007

One of the last favors the Howard government in Australia will be asked to perform for the Bush administration will be to attempt to soften the crushing diplomatic defeat the United States suffers every year at the United Nations over its ongoing economic blockade of Cuba.

A United Nations vote is expected on a motion by Cuba at the end of October. In 2006, the motion passed 183 to four (United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands, and Palau) with one abstention. Australia voted for the motion, but not before an unsuccessful attempt at an amendment that sought to criticize Cuba.

In breach of a range of international laws—from telecommunications to trade to the Genocide Convention—the United States has blockaded Cuba for nearly half a century, as part of a campaign to overthrow the elected government and the Cuban constitution.

The United States blockade, an executive act of President John F. Kennedy (after a failure to agree on compensation terms over the nationalization of United States companies), was set in United States law by the 1996 Helms Burton Act.

Under this "trading with the enemy" law, United States companies are banned from trading with Cuba and United States citizens cannot visit Cuba without United States government permission. United States citizens are regularly fined for visiting Cuba, or being caught with Cuban cigars. Cuba receives more than 2 million tourists every year, but very few are United States citizens.

Cuba says the economic blockade has cost it at least $89 billion in damages, denied important medical equipment, blocked scientific and cultural exchange, stolen the assets of or intimidated trading companies and constitutes a form of genocide, designed quite simply to re-colonize Cuba. The blockade has been accompanied by terrorist actions (including one C.I.A.-backed aircraft bombing) that have cost the lives of more than 3,000 Cubans.

The United States says its measures only constitute an "embargo," that the Cuban government alone is responsible for any economic problems and that this "embargo" is a bilateral matter that does not concern any other state.

However, United States subsidiaries in other countries are also banned from dealing with Cuba and this has widened the net, since the wave of takeovers and mergers during the 1990's and 2000's. Under United States law, technology with more than 10 percent United States content cannot be traded with Cuba, regardless of the nationality of ownership. Vessels carrying goods from Cuba cannot enter United States ports. And even the families of business people who trade with Cuba may be (and have been) denied United States visas.

In 2007, two Australian banks were drawn into this campaign because of their United States shareholdings and operations. In February, ANZ said it was ending all transactions with Cuba, to ensure compliance with United States law. In September, the National Australia Bank was fined $100,000 by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (O.F.A.C.) of the United States Treasury, for a number of small transactions that allowed transfers to Cuban interests. One of these was a payment of $452 to a Canadian credit card owned by a Cuban citizen. Banks are generally "apolitical" when it comes to business, but in this case, Washington calls the shots.

The Howard government has consistently voted in favor of anti-blockade motions at the United Nations. "Free trade," after all, is a major element of Australian foreign policy, as successive Australian governments have tried to expand their exports of agricultural goods, especially to the United States.

However, the practice of Australian "free trade" is a much dirtier affair. In November 2006, the Australian ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Hill, moved an amendment to the Cuban motion, seeking to add a clause that called on Cuba to "release unconditionally all political prisoners" and to respect human rights treaties. The Australian role only emerged because even the most pro-United States Latin American governments would not agree to take up the task. Hill's amendment was roundly defeated and the Cuban motion was passed overwhelmingly.

South African diplomat Sivu Maqungo, on behalf of the Group of 77 (a coalition of Third World countries), supported the Cuban motion "because this relentless and unilateral action has caused untold suffering to the people of Cuba." The motion was a way to exert pressure on United States actions that are "contrary to international law, international humanitarian law, the United Nations charter and the norms and principles governing peaceful relations among states."

What did the Australian "human rights" amendment have to do with a motion over the United States trade blockade of Cuba? Very little. Opposition to the United States blockade has steadily grown at the United Nations, and it was clear the amendment would fail. However, the United States wanted to save face and needed "allies" to pretend a little legitimacy.

The major "human rights" accusation the United States aims at Cuba concerns political prisoners. Cuba does have several dozen political prisoners, but almost all have been convicted of taking money from United States government programs that aim to overthrow the Cuban government and constitution. The United States claims that these United States-paid agents have special privileges as "independent journalists" or part of "civil society."

The United States also pretends that Cuba does not have elections, because the United States-funded groups are banned from contesting, and because the constitution embeds socialist principles. In fact, Cuban national elections are in October.

After Hill's motion failed, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said that Australia "does not have the moral authority to attempt to refer to the human rights situation in Cuba." Perez Roque called Australia a "lackey" and "accomplice" in United States wars of imperialism.

Indeed. Robert Hill personally, as defense minister, directed Australian bombing raids and missile strikes in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was personally responsible for the slaughter of many thousands of innocent Iraqis. Hill also hid his knowledge of the torture operations at Abu Ghraib for over a year, and backed the closure of Al Jazeera's Baghdad television station. Hill's colleague, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, argued for the invasion of Iraq on the basis that support for the United States-led war could benefit "Australia's commercial position in Iraq." These are better credentials for war criminals than defenders of human rights.

Nevertheless, Hill feigned innocence at the United Nations, saying that "the price of speaking up and asking for nothing more than [what] is reasonable is to be abused by the Cuban minister with false allegations and offensive language."

Stay tuned for the next installment of the Howard government's spirited defense of "human rights" at the United Nations. The next anti-blockade motion is scheduled for late October. With Howard's defeat looming in the imminent Australian elections, Washington might call on one last favor.

Cuba at the United Nations: Speech by Felipe Pérez Roque

Recorded on September 26, 2007 - Speech by Felipe Pérez Roque before the General Assembly of the United Nations. [I have chosen the Spanish version (without translation) because I always find the translations to be somewhat filtered in emotion and content, nevertheless for those who would rather hear it in English I have included the links at the bottom of this post]

Part I in Spanish

Part II in Spanish


Part I with English translation
Part II with English translation