COLLIER: The NATO actions

[Oscar]

COLLIER: The NATO actions

-----Original Message-----
From: KEN COLLIER <kcollier@shaw.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, November 4, 2014 12:20 PM
Subject: The NATO actions

After seeing the 2012 article about NATO forwarded in several blogs, NATO: Peacemakers or Peacebreakers? [ http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish ... 8866.shtml ], I thought I should comment.

I don't think Canada can be realistically portrayed as "leading" NATO in its war in Libya. NATO is, and always was, led by the USA. Funding (see link below) comes mainly from USA and Britain.

Canada's brief military leadership (as in, the commander was from Canada for a time) springs from Canada joining in "inter-operability" programming and purchases to make sure weaponry, ammunition, equipment, supplies and policies are as close to identical as possible. That makes it possible for any NATO troops to join a conflict anywhere with identical equipment, with no delays about incompatible bullets or rockets or planes, etc. The plan was consolidated when the chief of the Canadian armed forces, Rick Hillier, did a stint at Fort Hood in the USA where he was folded into the North American command structure, thus also being folded into the NATO structure. Some research would also likely show that previous chiefs did the same, and that current leader Tom Watson also did.

When Canada joined in the Afghanistan War, that arose from intense pressure on NATO countries by the US to take up some of the cost and action because the US Congress was getting restless, shall we say, about the US running up massive debts in foreign wars and getting heat for its slack treatment of returning warriors (and warriors in body bags). Afghanistan, you will recall, was the trade-off for not taking part in the attack on Iraq. Canada sending troops to Afghanistan merely freed up the American troops to go to Iraq.

NATO could be, accurately I think, described as a central tool with which the US brought the UK, Germany, France and other European countries to heel as it gained the singular position of dominance in the world system. Canada was and is a rather junior partner. SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Organization) was its counterpart in the Pacific. For a time, the Warsaw Pact countries, and China, were their only counters.

Wikipedia has a brief writeup which is ... OK, I guess, though can be criticized for what it does not say. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO ]

Here is a critique from an online magazine called the Final Call that I think is more or less accurate:

“NATO is a colonial operation. I think it’s very directly related and the U.S. is the most powerful colonial or neo-colonial country to ever exist,” Mr. Beacham told The Final Call. “The European powers of NATO really can’t do anything without the U.S. All the strings are being pulled here, all the decisions are being made here about which country to attack next, and whether it is possible.” - NATO: Peacemakers or Peacebreakers? - Final Call, By Ashahed M. Muhammad -Asst. Editor- | Last updated: May 22, 2012 [ http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish ... 8866.shtml ]

With their own countries facing severe economic woes and still reeling from the effects of costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, The United States and the United Kingdom rank first and second in terms of NATO financing. There are nearly 40 other nations—though not actually a part of the Alliance—that work with NATO, on a variety of issues of common interest, such as the development of more lethal military weapons systems, and Western Europe’s relationship with East Asia, the South Pacific and North Africa.

NATO funding:
[ http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_67655.htm ]

Ken Collier
Mission, BC

[Oscar]

ROBERTS: RE: The NATO actions

Sent: Monday, November 10, 2014 9:30:00 AM
Subject: Re: The NATO actions

This is good Ken and properly focused on the the present and recent past.

But it should also be said that NATO was the American response to the movement in Europe in the 1950s and 60s to build independent national, largely defensive, military strategies. The U.S., with British concurrence of course, imposed NATO, as befit the victor in WWII, on European "allies" to bloc any likelihood of Euro autonomy in military and therefor foreign policy independence.

J.K. Roberts,
Regina, SK