Shamefully, the world is subjected to the risk of war and even annihilation all for the purpose of maintaining elite American power privileges. And among those who suffer this diabolical injustice are none other than the majority of American citizens, who have to endure poverty and misery while their corporate elite siphon off $600 billion-a-year in military obscenity.
-Finian Cunningham, British Journalist
America follows two of the world’s oldest clichés in maintaining its empire. The first is to get someone else to do your dirty work. The second is to divide and conquer. For this short and brutal commentary we will deal with the first and defer the second.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded in 1949 as a defense alliance in Cold War l. When that war ended in 1991 with the collapse of the USSR, NATO should have been disbanded. Instead member states allowed the US to convert it into an instrument of war where NATO would become a cover for America’s imperial aggressions.
Not only would it become a cover for American global aggressions member states would assume much of the cost and consequences. It would also become a weapons cartel at the ready to buy endless supplies of very expensive war toys. NATO now accounts for 65% of the world’s annual military spending. This leaves us with the world awash in weaponry that is unnecessary and representing trillions of dollars better spent elsewhere.
At its founding there were 12 states. NATO now has 28 states and is dominated by the US with the other 27 as blindly obedient vassal states. Where it claims to be the defender of world peace and security it has started every war of the 21st century. It is the agent of regime change where any country that stands in the way of US strategic interest becomes a target.
Whereas in Cold War l NATO was a defense alliance for Western Europe it is the antagonist in Cold War ll. NATO has come to undermine the very territory it was intended to protect. Europe (all NATO vassal states) is now fighting America’s wars militarily, economically and absorbing the millions of refugees spawned by these wars.
Europe in supporting US economic sanctions against Russia has crippled its own economy. Where Russia should be a natural ally of Europe, the EU and NATO are so spineless as to be the dupes of American hegemonic ambitions and pave the way for their own ruin.
Where NATO has been content so far to attack and destroy smaller countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria it now has Russia and China in its gun sights as these are the two countries that block total American global hegemony. To this end both countries are under military siege and it appears the US is willing to risk WW lll to achieve its imperial ambitions.
It is utterly galling to hear the US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and presidential candidate Donald Trump criticize NATO members for not being more supportive when all 27 members are supplicants blindly obedient to the bully’s demands. The more the vassal states give the more the bully demands!
It is a grand hypocrisy for Canadian forces to participate in the destruction of countries like Libya and Syria, driving populations from their homelands through indiscriminate bombing and then turn around and congratulate ourselves for our tainted humanitarianism in taking in the refugees from these wars. Meanwhile, the US, the instigator, has taken virtually none.
The history of imperialism always has and always will be that when one country pursues empire it is at the expense of others. The expanse of the American empire is global and the price paid by others is no longer tolerable.
The outstanding questions now are how many more countries will be destroyed ? How many more populations decimated and dislocated before the empire’s insatiable bloodlust is satisfied? These are especially pertinent questions as America is pushing for a confrontation with Russia and China and the lethality of weaponry on both sides risks a confrontation like non-other.
The NATO vassal states may feel there is safety in silent compliance to the bully’s wishes but there is no safe refuge. The bully only demands more, the tyranny only escalates and the risk of greater wars looms large.
While the NATO vassal states are individually powerless, collectively they have the ability to severely limit America’s ability to project endless warfare on the world. By refusing to blindly follow Washington’s dictates, to attend its wars, a very dangerous impasse can be avoided. Of course, there is risk involved but to do nothing to remain silent allows the crisis to deepen and become potentially more lethal.
The silence of the NATO vassal states is both assent and complicity. Neither is reasonable or responsible. NATO has outlived its purpose and become an existential threat to the world’s peace and security. Abolishing NATO is a prodigious undertaking and it begins with the populations of 27 vassal states convincing our hapless governments that they must lead and cease being the dupes of endless warfare and militarism.
Robert Billyard 2016©
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