by Stephen Lendman

On August 17, the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post featured op-eds selling NATO at a time when its existence more than ever threatens humanity's survival. More on them below.

Claiming NATO is a "political and military alliance for peace and security" is farcical on its face. Its mission is polar opposite.

US-led NATO is an imperial tool. It's a global killing machine. It prioritizes war. It deplores peace. Humanity's survival hangs in the balance.

NATO includes 28 member nations, 22 Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) ones, seven Mediterranean Dialogue countries, and four Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) states.

They comprise nearly one-third of world nations. NATO plans exponential expansion. It wants new members and partners.

It wants them on all continents. It wants them virtually everywhere. It wants a global military established.

It wants unchallenged control. It wants all outliers eliminated. It wants pro-Western vassal states replacing them.

Its strategy prioritizes war on humanity. It's ravaging and destroying one country after another.

Its 1999 78-day rape of Yugoslavia was one of history's great crimes. So is its involvement in Washington's post-9/11 wars.

Naked aggression against countries posing no threat to America, other Western nations and its neighbors defines them.

Millions were ruthlessly slaughtered to advance Washington's imperium. NATO's confrontation with Russia alone risks global conflict.

Humanity's survival depends on stopping this monster before it's too late. Belligerence and destabilizing events in Eurasia perhaps leaves precious little time left to do it.

US-led NATO bears full responsibility for today's dangerous world. Not according to NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and its supreme allied commander, General Philip Breedlove.

Their Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined "A NATO for a Dangerous World." They ludicrously claimed NATO "kept the Cold War from getting hot," and made "an unprecedented period of peace" following WW II possible.

False! War with Nazi Germany devastated Soviet Russia. It needed years to rebuild its shattered country. It wanted peace, not more war.

Claiming a post-WW II period of peace runs counter to actual events. The Vietnam War began.

Wars raged in Indochina, Greece, Paraguay, between India and Pakistan, Palestine, the Korean peninsula, and elsewhere.

What Americans call the Korean War began in 1950. Various others raged at the same time.

Peace was elusive then. Today it looks almost entirely out of reach. Washington bears full responsibility for many of the world's hot spots.

Claiming peace is "challenged by Russia's aggression against Ukraine" turns truth on its head.

Rasmussen and Breedlove lied saying "(f)or the first time since the end of World War II, a European country has grabbed part of another's land by force."

Claiming Russia invaded Ukraine is polar opposite truth. Suggesting it took Crimea by force ignores near popular unanimity to rejoin Russia.

Calling non-threatening Russian military exercises near Ukraine border disruptive ignores all-out Kremlin efforts to resolve Ukrainian crisis conditions peacefully.

Saying Russian humanitarian aid is cynical leaves unexplained why America and other Western countries haven't provided their own.

Suggesting Russian involvement in downing MH17 ignores clear evidence of Kiev's responsibility.

Rasmussen and Breedlove falsely accuse Russia of "resorting to a hybrid war, with snap exercises, secret commandos and smuggled missiles."

They do so despite no evidence whatever supporting them.

At the same time, they claim NATO's mission is to "defend the territory, populations and shared values of all its members (against) any threat."

The only ones they face are invented as pretexts for America's rage to ravage one country after another.

To deploy NATO forces close to Russian and Chinese borders. To surround them. To target their heartlands with nuclear-armed missiles.

To make the world safe for war profiteers, corporate America and its Western counterparts.

To replace independent governments with pro-Western stooge ones. To achieve unchallenged control worldwide. To risk global conflict to achieve it.

At the same time, America bears full responsibility for threatening humanity's survival. Rogue NATO states and Israel share it.

Rasmussen and Breedlove say they "continue to urge Russia to make the responsible choice: to pull back its troops, stop using hybrid-warfare tactics, and engage with the international community and the Ukrainian government to find a political solution to the crisis."

Fact: Russia deplores war.

Fact: It goes all-out for peaceful conflict resolution.

Fact: It respects the sovereignty of other nations.

Fact: It believes rule of law principles are inviolable.

Fact: It's committed to resolving Ukraine's crisis diplomatically.

Fact: Washington bears full responsibility for generating it. Rogue NATO members share it.

Fact: It bears repeating. US-led NATO is a global killing machine.

Fact: It's for offense, not defense.

Fact: World peace depends on putting this monster of of business.

Fact: Failure to do so risks the worst of all possible outcomes.

On August 17, former US officials Brent Scowcroft, Stephen Hadley and Franklin Miller headlined their Washington Post op-ed "NATO-based nuclear weapons are an advantage in a dangerous world."

They irresponsibly accused Russia of "adventurism in Ukraine and elsewhere in Eastern Europe."

They want destabilizing US nuclear weapons maintained in Europe because of "calls for the United States to unilaterally withdraw" its arsenal.

They call arguments to do so "shopworn, familiar - and wrong."

Fact: Nuclear weapons in the hands of imperial America, its rogue NATO allies and Israel are the greatest threat to humanity's survival.

Fact: Peace, stability and security depends on eliminating nuclear weapons altogether.

Fact: Failure to do so is madness.

Scowcroft, Hadley and Miller call these weapons "a visible symbol to friend and potential foe of the US commitment to defend NATO with all of the military power it possesses."

NATO's only enemies are ones it invents. It does so to replace sovereign independent governments with pro-Western subservient ones.

It wages premeditated wars of aggression to do so. Don't expect Scowcroft, Hadley and Miller to explain.

Instead they claim "newer members joined NATO in large part to get under this nuclear umbrella, and they have been vocal in expressing their concern that withdrawing the weapons would symbolize a diminution in the US commitment to defend them?"

Claiming a recidivist Russian threat doesn't wash. Moscow has no territorial ambitions. It doesn't threaten its neighbors.

It respects their sovereignty. It deplores war. It goes all-out for peace and stability. It wants crisis conditions resolved diplomatically.

US-led NATO wages one war of aggression after another. It does so to resolve crises it creates.

Scowcroft, Hadley and Miller turn truth on its head claiming "NATO's principal role is deterring aggression rather than having to defeat it."

It bears repeating. NATO is a global killing machine. It's for offense, not defense.

Its threatens humanity's survival. World peace and stability depend on dismantling this monster once and for all. Nothing less is acceptable.

NATO members saying "(n)uclear weapons are a core component of NATO's overall capabilities for deterrence and defense alongside conventional and missile defense" runs counter to the clear and present danger these WMDs pose.

Accusing Russia of "seeking to destabilize Ukraine and tak(e) unsettling actions in both the Baltics and the Balkans" is polar opposite truth.

Claiming "this is no time to destabilize the NATO alliance and traumatize our NATO allies by withdrawing our nuclear weapons from Europe" is ludicrous on its face.

It bears repeating. Nuclear weapons in the hands of imperial America, its rogue NATO allies and Israel are humanity's greatest threat.

World peace, stability and survival depends on eliminating them altogether.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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