{"id":370983,"date":"2018-07-26T21:13:32","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T20:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-sanctification-of-nato\/"},"modified":"2018-07-26T21:13:32","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T20:13:32","slug":"the-sanctification-of-nato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-sanctification-of-nato\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sanctification of NATO"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Guardian:<\/p>\n

To the Guardian<\/strong> (7\/10\/18<\/a>), NATO “ushered in a democratic, liberal world order.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Claims that US President Donald Trump is undermining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by criticizing some of its members and having a cordial meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin have sent establishment media into a frenzy to sanctify NATO as a force for peace and democracy.<\/p>\n

A Guardian<\/b> editorial (7\/10\/18<\/a>) asserted:<\/p>\n

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The NATO alliance has helped mold the modern world and ushered in a democratic, liberal world order characterized by open trade and open societies, which after the collapse of the Soviet Union needed only to be lightly defended. This in turn contributed greatly to American peace and prosperity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Note that \u201cAmerican peace\u201d is a phrase used to describe a state that is currently bombing one country or another every 12 minutes<\/a>, while US \u201cprosperity\u201d takes the form of spending $716 billion<\/a> on the war machine annually while <\/a>40 million Americans live in poverty, giving the country a child poverty rate of 21 percent as well as the worst child mortality rate<\/a> among rich nations.<\/p>\n

A New York Times<\/b> editorial (7\/8\/18<\/a>) said that since World War II, the alliance has been \u201cthe anchor of an American-led and American-financed peace that fostered Western prosperity and prevented new world wars.\u201d According to the paper, NATO has<\/p>\n

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linked America and Europe not just in a mutual defense pledge but in advancing democratic governance, the rule of law, civil and human rights, and an increasingly open international economy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Times<\/b> argued that, while the alliance\u2019s original purpose was allegedly to respond to a hypothetical Soviet attack, NATO \u201cfound a new purpose\u201d after the fall of the USSR, \u201cdefending Muslims in the Balkans, and after 9\/11, helping the United States fight terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa and elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/strong> (7\/8\/18<\/a>) credits NATO with “advancing democratic governance, the rule of law, [and] civil and human rights.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What the Times<\/b> called \u201cdefending Muslims in the Balkans\u201d was actually NATO\u2019s invasion of Yugoslavia, an important tool in the dismantling of that country<\/a>, which only under the most curious of definitions could be described as an act of \u201cpeace\u201d or an exemplar of \u201cthe rule of law,\u201d since the attack was illegal<\/a>. Likewise, in \u201cfight[ing] terrorists in Afghanistan,\u201d NATO has hardly shown itself to be an agent of \u201cpeace\u201d in a war that\u2019s gone on for almost 17 years, during which NATO members have demonstrated their regard for \u201ccivil and human rights\u201d by killing thousands of Afghan civilians and supporting torturers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While NATO\u2019s occupation has yet to usher in an \u201copen societ[y]\u201d or democracy in Afghanistan, the alliance\u2019s presence has coincided with the birth of ISIS in the country<\/a>. Rather than embodying \u201cpeace\u201d or \u201chuman rights,\u201d the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, which NATO took part in by way of a \u201ctraining mission,\u201d entailed<\/a> torture, the killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, the use of chemical weapons, and rates of infant mortality, cancer and leukemia higher than those reported in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then in the Iraqi theatre of the war ostensibly aimed at ISIS<\/a>, NATO demonstrated these values and helped \u201cfight terrorists\u201d as part of a coalition that killed thousands <\/a>of civilians.<\/p>\n

The Times<\/b>\u2019 vague reference to \u201cfight[ing] terrorists in…Africa\u201d notwithstanding, none of the articles discussed above or below mentioned Libya, the site of NATO\u2019s most recent full-scale war. Yet it\u2019s fair to say that the seemingly endless war and social collapse in Libya that have followed NATO\u2019s attack, as well as the \u201chell\u201d of beheadings<\/a>, rape<\/a>, and slave markets that resulted from it<\/a>, aren\u2019t features of \u201copen societies\u201d characterized by \u201cpeace,\u201d \u201cdemocratic\u201d politics and \u201cthe rule of law, civil and human rights.\u201d One struggles, in fact, to come up with a single example where such things were the goal of a NATO intervention, let alone its outcome.<\/p>\n

Advocating Aggression<\/h3>\n

Canonizing NATO involves not only erasing its innumerable crimes but also advocating the bolstering of the organization, which would both increase the threat of war and divert resources from socially necessary goods like healthcare, housing, education, ameliorating poverty and inequality, and addressing the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

\"WaPo:<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/strong> (7\/7\/18<\/a>) applauds “the biggest buildup by US allies in 25 years”–despite the fact that NATO is already responsible for more than half the world’s spending on war.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A Washington Post<\/b> editorial (7\/7\/18<\/a>) said:<\/p>\n

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There is considerable good news to celebrate: [NATO] has substantially beefed up defenses of its eastern flank, facing Russia; it is recommitting to vital missions in Afghanistan and Iraq; and every one of its members is increasing defense spending\u2014the biggest buildup by US allies in 25 years. The summit is due to adopt an ambitious new plan that would allow NATO to deploy 30\u2008battalions, 30 squadrons of planes and 30 ships within 30\u2008days\u2014a resource that could considerably bolster the ability of the United States to respond to crises.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Times<\/b> editorial claimed that, \u201cfaced with\u201d an unspecified \u201cRussian threat\u201d\u2014the existence of which the editorial offers no evidence for, but refers to twice\u2014\u201ca firm and convincing commitment to a strong NATO\u201d is important. Thus the paper implicitly endorsed NATO\u2019s<\/p>\n

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establishing two new military commands, expanding cyberwarfare and counterterrorism efforts, and approving a new plan to speed the reinforcement of troops and equipment to Poland and the Baltic States to deter Russian aggression.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

None of this coverage addressed NATO\u2019s threats to Russia and how these shape Russian actions. Though NATO leaders promised<\/a> Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not expand \u201cone inch eastward\u201d toward Russia, the alliance has since grown quite a few inches eastward by adding to its ranks Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia and Montenegro.<\/p>\n

\"Nation:<\/p>\n

The Nation<\/strong> (7\/11\/18<\/a>) was one of the few outlets not join in the sanctification of NATO.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As Benjamin Schwarz pointed out in The Nation<\/b> (7\/11\/18<\/a>), the US has \u201cinterfered in the pre- and post-coup political machinations in Ukraine,\u201d and \u201cNATO has signaled that its expansion into Ukraine is a question of when, not if.\u201d He went on to note:<\/p>\n

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And now that NATO has created an enemy [in Russia], it justifies its [own] intensifying provocative actions\u2014the massive annual military exercises since 2010 in Poland, Lithuania, and, on Russia\u2019s very doorstep, in Latvia and Estonia; the creation of a permanent US Army headquarters in Poland; a new Pentagon-devised plan for a prolonged war with Russia; the US ambassador to NATO\u2019s explicit identification of \u201cRussia and the malign activities of Russia\u201d as NATO\u2019s \u201cmajor\u201d target\u2014by declaring that they are nothing more than a necessary reaction to Russian hostility and the need, as the New York Times<\/b> editorial board declared this week, to \u201ccontain\u201d the Russian \u201cthreat.\u201d And what, according to the Pentagon\u2019s 2018 National Defense Strategy, makes the Russians a threat? Nothing less than that their aim\u2014which is as unproven as it would be understandable\u2014is \u201cto shatter\u201d NATO, the military pact arrayed against them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Since 2016, NATO has had 4,000 troops <\/a>in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.<\/p>\n

Thus, when the Post<\/b> said NATO\u2019s military buildup \u201ccould considerably bolster the ability of the United States to respond to crises,\u201d it should have added that NATO is a driving force in creating these crises in the first place. These media accounts suggest, however, that NATO has an unlimited right to build up its forces near Russian territory, while any Russian response to that is entirely illegitimate.<\/p>\n

Therein lies the meta level of the absurdity of this panic about Trump being anti-NATO. By insisting that US allies in the organization pay in more heavily, he\u2019s actually calling for NATO to be built up. In February, the Trump administration released its Nuclear Posture Review, which <\/a>authorized \u00a0developing and deploying so-called \u201clow-yield\u201d nuclear weapons to \u201cdeter\u201d Russia in case it\u2019s not already deterred by America\u2019s massive nuclear arsenal.<\/p>\n

The problem isn\u2019t, as the media suggests, that Trump is weakening NATO; the problem is that he\u2019s strengthening it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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