NATO: A Fascist Imperial Tool of US Domination

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Someone - not some troll, but a person who has been here a long time, and has a solid reputation - correctly takes issue with misuse of a word and what is the response? Not asking that person to make a case, but implying it is an attack on China, and a bunch of other distractions and veiled attacks that have nothing  to do with the point.

Context is everything. The NATO communique was a direct attack on China so I pointed out the imperial past of the main NATO partners in the context of China. Personally I think the term NAZI is overused and thus meaningless. I also think the idea that my post somehow was gaslighting Lagatta is bizarre. I think that fascist is a very accurate term for what NATO has morphed into during the nearly twenty years we have been posting here. I thought NATO was evil twenty years ago and since then it has destroyed; Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Venezuela etc etc.

I am apologetically  against Pax Americana and it rules based international order. I much prefer Article 2 of the UN Charter. It was drafted to prevent other powers from doing what the NAZI did prior to WWII when it annexed various parts of its neighbours under the pretense of protecting minority populations from persecution. Its such a good line that NATO has now taken it to an art form. So while technically NATO is not a NAZI organization they have evolved into an imperial body that employs the same tactics that the Nazi's used.

So tell me do you think the US has gotten better or worse as a world actor during the 18 years you have been posting here?

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Then  you agree about the misuse of the word. So why the flak instead of having a simple conversation?

I'd expect a reaction if it was a point like the one I just raised about the perennial double standards. But it wasn't. 

As for my axe to grind perhaps you are happy having maybe two dozen people posting here. I think it is a sad state of affairs, but entirely understandable given that even a simple question of semantics sets off the alarm bells.

I wish I could say I missed having a discussion with you however you sidle sideways to avoid direct discussion of any relevant point.

So tell me do you think the US has gotten better or worse as a world actor during the 18 years you have been posting here?

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Well it's irrelevant.

What does one world power's behaviour, or whether it is better or worse than others have to do with the question of whether imperialism and fascism and Nazism are the same thing? Nothing. This isn't about how bad these states are, and in recent years they have all gotten worse.

You have already said you agree that Nazism is incorrect. Why not just agree in the first place?

Now I remember how to post with you.

You are absolutely correct and anything I said that might have sounded like I could disagree with your unassailable logic was clearly wrong.

Have a good day, I hope you find someone else to troll.

laine lowe wrote:

I hope I live long enough to see an end to NATO.

I have hoped to see it dismantled since I started following politics five decades ago. Canadians by and large seem to be quite comfortable being back in the same position today as we were before the Statute of Westminster. Our foreign policy is coordinated within NATO to suit the imperial interests and our military forces are almost totally integrated into a NATO structure that makes it hard to see where a Canadian politician has any influence. That is the democracy we are demanding other non subservient governments adopt or we will bomb them or coup them or sanction them, until they say Uncle Sam.

Indeed we should be polite in our oppostion because the boss always gives you more when you doff your cap.

NDPP wrote:

Historical revisionism at its worst: Canada remembers Libya

https://twitter.com/CanEmbEgypt/status/1455535273715118084

"10 years ago Canada was one of the first countries to respond to the Libyan people's demands for democracy..."

Led by a RCAF General, Charles Bouchard, NATO bombed Libya, a country with the highest standard of living in all of Africa, back into the stone-age, complete with slave markets and relentless internecine jihadist proxy warfare.

I do recall we started freezing Gaddafi money. Seems to me if we knew Gaddafi was so awful we shouldn't have been helping him rob the country.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Pondering wrote:

I do recall we started freezing Gaddafi money. Seems to me if we knew Gaddafi was so awful we shouldn't have been helping him rob the country.

Yet again you post gibberish. We bombed the richest country in Africa back to the stone ages and you do victim blaming.

I am blaming Canada. The world had no problem with Gaddafi money until the drumbeats of war began. We froze assets February 2011. So up until then, we were fine with Gaddafi storing billions of dollars of Libyan money, therefore profiting off it.

So how do we get from "sure, you can store your ill-gotten gains here, to war, in a month.

Ill gotten gains and the President of Libya being involved in "storing" national government money from the sale of oil that belonged to Libya. Your framing of issues is a bizarre mix of the worst talking points of a decade old propaganda campaign. Someone should study you to see which propaganda points stick better than others.

NDPP wrote:

Putin on 'Red Lines'

https://youtu.be/FYv--TPfX9k

"President Putin has been speaking about potential NATO expansion in Ukraine, saying it was a red line he hoped would not be crossed...

'If strike systems are deployed to Ukraine, the flight time to Moscow will be 5 minutes. And what are we supposed to do then? We will be forced to do something similar to counter the threat...I really hope it won't come to that. I hope that common sense and a sense of responsibility for our respective countries and the international community will prevail..."

I disagree with Putin on most things, but he is absolutely right about this. It is insanity to put such weapons on Russia's border. Kiss your ass goodbye if this happens.

..i remember the ndp withdrawing their support for the serbian bombing. it was after a groundswell of opposition from both inside and outside the party. i myself sent an email protesting the ndp's initial position.

Bombs and Waffles: the NDP and NATO in the twentieth century

In recent days NDP MPs Leah Gazan, Niki Ashton and Don Davies have come under fire from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress for tweets questioning Canadian support for military assistance to Ukraine and its membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In contrast, NDP Deputy Foreign Affairs Critic Heather McPherson indicated that the NDP supports a pathway for Ukraine to join NATO. The NDP’s official statement on the “escalating threats” of a Russian invasion urges the Canadian government to work with multilateral alliances, including NATO, “to find a real diplomatic solution to the looming crisis.”

Long-time observers of the NDP should not be surprised at the internal disarray over Canadian support for NATO. The party’s stance on Canadian involvement in the alliance has been the source of considerable debate and internal tension within the NDP and the left in Canada since the party’s founding in 1961. The question of whether an NDP government would maintain Canada’s membership in NATO and the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) was one of the few sources of dissension at the party’s founding convention. Connections between party activists and the peace and nuclear disarmament movements ran deep through the years of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) which preceded the NDP, and delegates at the convention criticized the draft program’s commitment to pull Canada out of NORAD while remaining in NATO. According to historian Desmond Morton, only the intervention of former CCF leader M.J. Coldwell, CCF President David Lewis, and soon-to-be NDP leader Tommy Douglas saved the compromise policy from defeat on the floor.

quote:

Waffling over NATO airstrikes in the 1990s

In March 1999, when NATO forces began their bombardment of Serbian targets in response to evidence of the ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo, the NDP joined with other major Canadian political parties in support of the airstrikes. However, a month later, the party caucus changed its tune. Arguing that a month of active bombing had not achieved its initial objectives, British Columbia MP Nelson Riis and leader Alexa McDonough urged the Canadian government to withdraw support for NATO’s aerial bombardment. After touring Kosovo and refugee camps in Macedonia, maverick BC MP Svend Robinson likewise reversed course and called for an end to NATO’s bombing campaign.

As today, the issue of Canadian support for a NATO-led military intervention in eastern Europe generated considerable debate on the left. Some urged support on human rights grounds—at the close of the twentieth century, they argued, ethnic cleansing could not be permitted to go unchallenged. Others expressed doubts based on their reading of late twentieth century history; a history of American-led military interventions that failed to achieve their stated objectives and could lead to more harm than good. Some on the left even expressed concern that NATO’s actions could precipitate a greater crisis in the future. Former Waffler James Laxer explained, “in 10 years, when we’ve all forgotten what Kosovo was, will we be looking at a crazed xenophobic regime in Moscow and asking, ‘did we help put that regime into power?’ That’s a really dangerous thing.”

No doubt Jagmeet Singh and the NDP caucus are pondering this history as they plot a course forward for the party on the current Ukraine-Russia crisis.