by Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research:
This article addresses the dangers and consequences of a Third World War as well the nature of advanced weapons systems deployed by the broader US-NATO coalition.
Extensive war crimes have been committed by NATO member states.
The object of the 2019 Florence Venue is NATO-EXIT. The Dismantling of NATO and the closure of US military bases.
There is a (somewhat contradictory) clause within the Treaty of the Atlantic Alliance (Article 13) which enables withdrawal from NATO. This clause has to be examined and a strategy must be envisaged.
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The request of a NATO Member State to withdraw from the Treaty rests with the Government of the United States of America. What are the legal implications of this clause?
In our conclusion we will address what types of actions are required by mass movements to reach this objective, bearing in mind that since the war on Iraq (2003), protest movements have been coopted and manipulated. While global warming makes the headlines, the dangers of nuclear war are barely mentioned. Why?
Introduction and Overview
Washington’s unspoken hegemonic objective is Worldwide militarization and economic conquest. This imperial design is carried out through acts of war, military intervention, coups d’Etat, regime change, US sponsored insurgencies, cyber-warfare, economic sabotage and destabilization. “All options are on the table”.
We are at an important threshold in our history
In relation to all previous wars, today’s advanced military arsenal includes nuclear, biological, chemical and electromagnetic weapons which have the ability to destroy human life on a Worldwide scale.
War Propanganda
This military agenda is supported by an extensive propaganda apparatus.
The dangers of a World War are casually dismissed. War is portrayed as a humanitarian endeavor. The Mainstream media contends that war is a peace-making undertaking and that NATO should be granted the Nobel Peace prize.
Propaganda sustains the war agenda.
It provides a human face to war criminals in high office. Without media disinformation which upholds war as a peacemaking endeavor, America’s military agenda would collapse like a house of cards.
The imminent dangers of modern warfare are not front page news.
War is portrayed as a Peace-making endeavour. War Becomes Peace, Realities are turned upside down.
When the Lie becomes the Truth, there is no turning backwards. War criminals are portrayed as peace-makers.
War and Globalization. The Neoliberal Agenda
War and globalization go hand in hand. Militarization supports the imposition of macro-economic restructuring on targeted countries. It imposes military spending in support of the war economy at the expense of the civilian economy. It leads to economic destabilization and the demise of national institutions.
Military interventions are coupled with concurrent acts of economic sabotage and financial manipulation. The ultimate objective is conquest of both human and natural resources as well as political institutions.
Acts of war support a process of outright economic conquest. America’s hegemonic project is to transform sovereign countries into open territories. Debt conditionalities are imposed by foreign creditors. In turn, large sectors of the World population are impoverished through the concurrent imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms.
9/11 and the Invasion of Afghanistan. NATO and the “Global War on Terrorism”
The September 11, 2001 attacks (9/11) constitute an important and historical threshold. On the 12th of September 2001, the North Atlantic Council in Brussels invoking for the first time the doctrine of collective security (art. 5 of the Washington Treaty) adopted the following resolution:
“if it is determined that the [September 11, 2001] attack against the United States was directed from abroad [Afghanistan] against “The North Atlantic area“, it shall be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty”. (emphasis added)
This historic decision was supported by media propaganda. There was no attack against the US by a foreign power. There were no Afghan jet fighters in the skies of New York. There was a terror event. But it was not an act of war by a foreign power against the United States of America.
Without a shred of evidence, Afghanistan was tagged as the state sponsor of the 9/11 high-jackers, all of whom were Saudi nationals. Allegedly Afghanistan was “protecting” 9/11 terror mastermind Osama bin Laden (who was an “intelligence asset”, recruited in the early 1980s by the CIA ). Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts were known. On the 10th of September (as documented by Dan Rather CBS News) Osama had been admitted to the urology department of a military hospital in Rawalpindi, by America’s staunchest ally Pakistan.
Moreover, in the course of September and early October 2001, the Afghan Taliban government on two occasions contacted the US State Department through diplomatic channels and offered to extradite bin Laden to the U.S. This issue was not covered by the media.
Bush responded:” We do not negotiate with terrorists”.
Barely 4 weeks following the 9/11 attack on October 7, 2001, US-NATO invaded Afghanistan, invoking the doctrine of collective security. There was no evidence that “Afghanistan had attacked America” on September 11, 2001.
It is worth noting, confirmed by military analysts that you do not prepare a large scale theatre war in Central Asia, thousands of miles away in a matter of 28 days. This issue was casually dismissed by the mainstream media. The war on Afghanistan had been prepared PRIOR to 9/11.
US-NATO’s Role in Recruiting and Financing Al Qaeda Affiliated Terrorists
NATO has self-proclaimed mandate to go after the terrorists.
Yet there is ample evidence that NATO was involved in supporting as well as recruiting Al Qaeda affiliated mercenaries in Kosovo, Libya and Syria.(among other countries)
