Christopher King

[Christopher King analyses the current state of relations between Europe and the United States. He argues that the US military presence in Europe, and the transformation of NATO into an American tool, is tantamount to military occupation and is an obstacle to the development of pan-European and European-Russian relations.]

The NATO First Act of the United States

The spectacular carnage and destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan have distracted our attention from the big picture, of which these appear to be a relatively small part.

Sometimes we have to adopt a new view of our world and this is one of those times. Because of the secrecy, propaganda and lies that now characterize our governments it is necessary to work backwards from their actions in the public domain to determine the truth. I wish to offer three data points that fit into the trend of the USA’s undisguised primary objective – to be the dominant military power in the world. This was reiterated by President Barack Obama at Annapolis Naval Academy (New York Times, 22 May 2009, speech text p.3, penultimate paragraph)

These items of data are:

• The Polish/Czech missile system
• The current Middle Eastern wars
• The NATO First Act of the United States

US military bases in Europe – an occupation in all but name

The Polish/Czech missile system was supposed to defend Europe and the United States against missiles from Iran and other unspecified rogue states. No-one believed this rubbish spouted by Condoleezza Rice, among others, and the reaction of the Polish and Czech governments to its cancellation proved the lie. They were aimed at Russia and everyone knew it. But why? The Russians were threatening no-one, they had embraced a market economy and wanted acceptance by the international community.

Let’s review a little history. When the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia adopted the market economy that the US and Europe wanted it to, NATO suddenly had no reason to exist. It wasn’t just that military jobs and careers would vanish together with lucrative arms contracts and the industries that supplied them. There was no longer any reason to keep US military bases in Europe.

In contemplating the changed order in Europe it would be evident that Russia would become more important economically to the European Union than the US. Russia had gas, mineral resources and markets ripe for development to offer Europe. These would complement perfectly European industries and technology. If the expanding EU and Russia should merge economically, an economic and military superstate would result. From a US viewpoint this would be highly undesirable.

US strategists would have quickly realized that, by virtue of its bases, the US had since 1945 governed all Euro-Russian relationships. The European contribution to NATO’s firepower was insignificant compared with US nuclear weapons installed in Europe. If US bases were removed, the ability to govern European-Russian relations would be lost. How to keep them? The answer: new enemies were needed.

The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre, Osama Bin Laden’s lever to get the US out of Saudi Arabia, was therefore a gift. It enabled the US to enrol NATO in a totally irrelevant and disproportionate attack on the Afghan Taliban, who had nothing to do with it and later, Saddam Hussein and Iraq on wholly false and illegal grounds. False allegations about Iran’s nuclear programme could also generate a simmering discord that could be escalated at any time, with the possible prize of direct control of both Iraqi and Iranian oil. In the event, the conquests of Iraq and Afghanistan have been more difficult than anticipated, with extensions to Pakistan. But no matter. Enemies aplenty, too weak to threaten the US, had been found. European politicians such as Anthony Blair and Nicholas Sarkozy whose personal interests (Blair, money; Sarkozy, Israel) lay with the US, were happy to have NATO participate in this. Sarkozy brought France, which had always promoted an independent European force, into NATO for this purpose.

Europe through NATO, therefore, currently provides:

• A fig-leaf of legitimacy to the fictitious US “war against terror”
• Manpower for the USA’s territorial and oil grab as well as future adventures
• A rationale for the retention of US bases in Europe
• A European force within Europe controlled by the US

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union NATO has undergone subtle but important structural changes. Prior to that event, US and European armed forces were substantially separate and were directly controlled by their various governments. Following the USSR’s collapse, European NATO forces have become integrated with US forces. NATO itself has become a political-military entity substantially independent of European governments – but not of that of the US.

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, is American – General James L. Jones. This has always been an American post. For purposes of public perceptions, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former prime minister of Denmark, is the face of NATO in Europe. Rasmussen is a puppet because the official structure of NATO is a sham. It is equivalent to the “independent” forces of Iraq and Afghanistan which have been set up to act for the US. Command of NATO forces also lies with the US. As in Iraq and Afghanistan, real military power in European NATO countries lies in the United States bases on their territory rather than with their governments.

The US transformation of NATO enables the US to train, identify and promote those European armed services personnel who are willing to identify with US objectives and who can be relied on to act in US interests within Europe. We have seen this in Georgia where NATO and Israel trained and armed the troops who invaded South Ossetia as the recent EU report makes clear. This was clearly a US/NATO-inspired provocation of Russia that was seized on by the pro-US media and politicians as unprovoked Russian aggression.

Similarly, the 28 June coup in Honduras was carried out by officers who had been trained at the School of the Americas, a military training college for South American officers at Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia (USA). Almost every South American coup leader and dictator has been trained there. Graduates of Fort Benning return to their countries but maintain links with the US. This is the channel for US subversion of South American governments. Its manuals, released in error, teach techniques in subversion and terrorism generally – use of explosives, kidnapping, murder, false imprisonment, targeting family members, torture and motivation by fear.

The Honduras coup appears to have surprised the Obama administration. If so, elements of the US military are undertaking foreign policy initiatives independently of the administration. Honduras has a US army base at Tegucigalpa.

In Europe, the US has bases in all NATO countries and, among other things, is training the armies of Georgia, which provoked Russia to military action, and Ukraine, which cut off gas supplies to Europe during the winter of 2008/9, probably on US prompting. The US is pressing for admittance of these reckless governments to NATO. It is duplicating in European armies the process of gaining loyalty to US interests that it undertakes at the School of the Americas in respect of the armies of Latin American countries.

US bases are the wide open back doors for CIA kidnapping and transfer of prisoners for torture, assassination, import of weapons and entry of personnel and money for clandestine purposes within Europe or in transit to other unfortunate countries and political subversion. They have the ability to provoke Russia and if necessary use force within Europe itself if European governments should seek to act against the USA’s perceptions of its interests. There is no good reason whatsoever for the US to have bases on European soil, or none that benefit Europe. They could certainly be used to protect the United States from enemies that it creates but only at heavy cost to Europe. These bases make Europe merely a pawn in the USA’s defence, from which Europe receives nothing whatsoever.

There is reason to believe that the US was involved in “popular” uprisings or campaigns in Serbia, Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine, according the the Guardian. Can you imagine what the US reaction would be to another country orchestrating an uprising or political campaign against the US government? US embassies and bases are pustules of deadly infection in any country that hosts them.

Now, I have described the current European situation in which the US does exactly as it pleases for its own benefit, particularly agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic to install a missile system that everyone knows is aimed at and intended to provoke Russia. Recently, President Obama announced that this proposed system is cancelled.

One might think that this is a wonderful thing and, in itself, that is true. The chronology up to this point is:

• 8 August 2008: Georgia invades South Ossetia with NATO encouragement (Bush)
• 14 August 2008: Missile deal agreed with Poland and Czechs (Bush)
• 7 January 2009: Ukraine cuts off Russian gas to Europe and US blames Russia (Bush)
• 20 January 2009: Obama inaugurated
• 10 June 2009: NATO First Act
• presented to Congress and currently in Committee
• 17 September: Obama tells the Polish prime minister that missile shield is cancelled.

The NATO First Act

The NATO First Act appears to be a hangover from the Bush years and it is not clear how it got to Congress in its present state given Obama’s subsequent cancellation of the Polish and Czech missile installations, since these are contained in it. One cannot imagine, however, that Obama would be pleased to have inherited Bush’s Middle Eastern wars as well as a new cold war with Russia, a country that could really do serious harm to the US.
Obama is doubtless perfectly happy with the Bush regime’s empire objectives that are consistent with standing US policy, but as a saner, more intelligent man, probably considers that they have gone too far with Russia. The missile shield and other nonsense on Russia’s border needlessly endanger the US and upsets Europe. Control of NATO and the appearance of cooperation with Russia will do just as well.

The NATO First Act therefore gives authorization to arms supplies to NATO and partner countries, missiles for Poland and the Czech Republic and cooperation with Russia on missile data and arms reduction. The key element of the act, however, is this (section 2):

US bases in Europe cannot be closed other than:
(a) by request of the host government or
(b) authorization by Congress.

The US has always been able to bribe decadent Europeans to do whatever it wants, so the first possibility for closing US bases can be dismissed. It’s the second part that’s interesting. It’s quite extraordinary of, course, that the US president, the commander-in-chief, can’t close down a US base if he wants to.

Congress is required to authorize closure of European bases in order to prevent any lily-livered chicken president who can’t stomach a punch-up with unreconstructed commies or effete Europeans, giving up US bases and lessening control of Europe. Any such presidential request to Congress will give ample opportunity to muster counter-pressure. Europe is going to stay welded hip and shoulder to the USA and you’d better believe it.

The purpose of this US legislation is to make the structure of the present US bases in Europe permanent, according to Doug Bandow, senior fellow of the Cato Institute and this is obviously its main aim. Sally McNamara of the Heritage Foundation claims that it will advance trans-Atlantic security, by which she means US security. She likes Bush’s bold initiatives in gaining missile sites in Eastern Europe, although why is difficult to imagine.

To ensure that Europe’s defence relies on the US, the two independent European strategic forces, the UK and France, have had their nuclear arsenals downgraded to the tactical level by Blair/Brown and Sarkozy. This means that the UK and France no longer have inter-continental hydrogen fusion armed missiles, although they do have short-range, low yield fission weapons (your basic atom bomb). It also means that the UK and France cannot threaten the US. Or indeed its proxy, Israel, some of whose belligerants have suggested that they could attack Europe if necessary. Europe’s teeth have been pulled.

I had originally thought that the Eastern European missiles were some sort of diversion from the Middle Eastern wars. They were, in fact, clumsy Bush-Cheney over-kill that revealed their true objectives – consolidation of the armed occupation of Europe.

Far from having a “special relationship” with the US, the UK and Europe have been subjected to armed occupation by corrupt politicians. The talk of “special relationship” is flattery by the US and self-deception by our weak politicians. We see the US at work in Eastern Europe. The notion that US bases are in Europe for its protection, that the US and Europe are equal partners in NATO is nonsense. Europe is as occupied by the US as Iraq or Afghanistan and NATO will do as the US wishes, just as the forces of Iraq and Afghanistan do. NATO countries will from now on have no independent forces. The appearance of European independence is wholly illusory.

High treason

A useful expression comes to mind here. It is high treason. High treason is defined in the UK as, briefly, a crime by one owing allegiance to the Crown who seeks to depose, injure or wage war against the Crown or to aid the Queen’s enemies within her realm. This includes collaboration with an invading foreign power. One can as easily identify an invading foreign power, whether in the UK, Europe or Iraq and Afghanistan. It constitutes armed foreigners on one’s territory when they have no business being there. The US has demonstrated in Eastern Europe that its forces are in Europe to foster trouble. More than that, they are here to control Europe.

There will always be traitors willing to collude with the enemy. The Nazis found and used them; the Palestinians have them in Mahmoud Abbas who at this moment does not recognize the Goldstone Report condemning Israel’s war crimes; the US has found them in Europe and the UK. Many identified themselves by ranting about Russia’s aggression in South Ossetia. Gordon Brown and David Milliband, our foreign minister, come to mind.

You might say, “But the USA has always been our friend. It helped us during the last two great wars and helped hold the line against the Soviet Union. Generally speaking, that has been true and it has been in the USA’s interest to be our friend. Even before the Soviet Union collapsed, however, it was the source of subversion and a friend to dictators all over South America and indeed, the world. It overthrew the democratic Iranian Mossadeq government and installed the Shah in order to control Iranian oil. Now we have its promotion of nuclear armed Israel that established itself by stealing Palestinian land and continues to do so; there are the wars and destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan based on naked lies, the beginnings of Pakistan’s destabilization, provocation of Russia from within Europe itself with the South Ossetia debacle, the Polish/Czech missile shield now cancelled and the Ukrainian gas crisis that Ukraine would never have undertaken without US backup. Then there is state-approved torture, kidnapping even from Europe and the flouting of the Geneva Convention and all conception of civilized law in its Guantanamo Bay torture facility. Complete innocents are still imprisoned there, seven months after Obama’s inauguration. Nine innocent Uighurs are being sent to the prison island of Palau after seven years there. Then there is the school for subversion and terrorism at Fort Benning.

USA – the sort of country Europe should have as a friend?

Really, is this the sort of country that we should have as our friend? Do we really trust its army bases and nuclear weapons on European soil? It is simply impossible that a country that behaves like this can be anyone’s friend. It only acts in its own interests and cares nothing for the suffering it causes to others. To the US, every problem has only a military solution. All it ever offers to other countries are bribes, weapons and trouble. Europeans who imagine that the US is their friend are gravely deluded.

Europe needs to wake up to the enemy currently established within it. There is no threat of missiles to Europe; any threat of terrorism arises from collaboration with the US in its Middle Eastern atrocities. There is no reason whatsoever to keep US bases on European territory. The NATO First Act is consolidation of the USA’s stranglehold on Europe, which it clearly signals. A failed, bankrupt state, a failed social experiment itself, the US now wishes to parasitize Europe and prevent Europe’s independent development in concert with Russia. Europe and Russia need each other for future security and development. Neither needs the United States.

Despite the NATO First Act’s immense importance to Europe, it is attracting no attention whatsoever. As I write, only 162 persons have read the text on the Congress website in the last five months. Those Europeans who are interested in preserving their freedom of self-determination should interest themselves in it, choose governments willing to detach from NATO, form a Euro-force and prepare to defend Europe.

Christopher King is a retired consultant and lecturer in management and marketing. He lives in London, UK.

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Source:
http://www.redress.cc/global/cking20091008
Photo:
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/docroot/dulcinea/fd_images/news/Europe/May-June-08/Continued-U-S--Military-Presence-Abroad-Stirs-Mixed-Reactions/news/0/image.jpg