Posted on 05/08/2023 5:58:00 AM PDT by RandFan
NATO’s post-Cold War history is that of an organization far past its “sell-by” date. Desperate for a mission after the end of the Warsaw Pact, NATO in the late 1990s decided that it would become the muscle behind the militarization of “human rights” under the Clinton Administration.
Gone was the “threat of global communism” which was used to justify NATO’s 40-year run, so NATO re-imagined itself as a band of armed Atlanticist superheroes. Wherever there was an “injustice” (as defined by Washington’s neocons), NATO was ready with guns and bombs.
The US military-industrial complex could not have been happier. All the Beltway think tanks they lavishly fund finally hit on a sure winner to keep the money pipeline flowing. It was always about money, not security.
The test run for NATO as human rights superheroes was Yugoslavia in 1999. To everybody but NATO and its neocon handlers in DC and many European capitals, it was a horrific, unjustified disaster. Seventy-eight days of bombing a country that did not threaten NATO left many hundreds of civilians dead, the infrastructure destroyed, and a legacy of uranium-tipped ammunition to poison the landscape for generations to come.
Just last week tennis legend Novak Djokovic recalled what it felt like to flee his grandfather’s home in the middle of the night as NATO bombs fell and destroyed it. What a horror!
Then NATO got behind the overthrow of the Gaddafi government in Libya. The corporate press regurgitated the neocon lies that bombing the country, killing its people, and overthrowing its government would solve all of Libya’s human rights problems. As could be predicted, NATO bombs did not solve Libya’s problems but made everything worse. Chaos, civil war, terrorism, slave markets, crushing poverty – no wonder Hillary Clinton, Obama, and the neocons don’t want to talk about Libya these days.
After a series of failures longer than we have space for here, DC-controlled NATO in 2014 decided to go all-in and target Russia itself for “regime change.” First step was overthrowing the democratically elected Ukrainian government, which Victoria Nuland and the rest of the neocons took care of. Next was the eight years of massive NATO military assistance to Ukraine’s coup government with the intent of fighting Russia. Finally, it was the 2022 rejection of Russia’s request to negotiate a European security agreement that would prevent NATO armies circling its border.
Despite the mainstream media and US government propaganda, NATO has been about as successful in Ukraine as it was in Libya. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been flushed away, with massive corruption documented by journalists like Seymour Hersh and others.
The only difference this time is that NATO’s target – Russia – has nuclear weapons and views this proxy war as vital to its very existence.
So now despite its legacy of failure, NATO has decided to start a conflict with China, perhaps to take attention off its disaster in Ukraine. Last week NATO announced that it will open its first-ever Asia office in Japan. What next, NATO membership for Taiwan? Will Taiwan willingly serve as NATO’s newest “Ukraine” – sacrificing itself to China in the name of blundering NATO’s seemingly endless appetite for conflict?
We can only hope that America will elect a president in 2024 who will finally end NATO’s deadly world tour.
Globalism is nothing more an modern-day imperialism. And, thanks to it, we're closer to WWIII and nuclear war than we were during the Cold War. De-dollarization is underway by the rest of the world, including former allies Saudi Arabia and India, because the rest of the world is sick of West's bullying.
What happened to SEATO?
“Welcome to your 2 front war”
Indeed! Russia is at war with Ukraine and getting themselves bloodied in the sixteenth month of a one week war.
And China is sending signals that they’re looking to retake Siberia. And if China retakes Siberia then there is NO ONE in the West who will object or stand up for Russia.
ansel, I kinda wondered why you posted that song to me. Then I did a quick check. By golly he’s the Captain Blunt who helped to stop Wesley Clark from starting WW III.
Pretty amazing. I don’t care much for his music. But I sure do admire his judgment on that day.
It shocked me the first time I learned it.
“Blunt trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Life Guards, a unit of the Household Cavalry, where he rose to the rank of captain.”
“I was given the direct command to overpower the 200 or so Russians who were there. I was the lead officer with my troop of men behind us from the Parachute Regiment, so they’re obviously game for the fight.
“The direct command [that] came in from Gen Wesley Clark was to overpower them. Various words were used that seemed unusual to us. Words such as ‘destroy’ came down the radio.” Asked if following the order would have risked starting World War III, Blunt, who was a 25-year-old cavalry officer at the time, replied: “Absolutely. And that’s why we were querying our instruction from an American general.
“Fortunately, up on the radio came Gen Mike Jackson, whose exact words at the time were, ‘I’m not going to have my soldiers be responsible for starting World War III’, and told us why don’t we sugar off down the road, you know, encircle the airfield instead.
If Gen Jackson had not blocked the order from Gen Clark, who as Nato Supreme Commander Europe was his superior officer, Blunt said he would still have declined to follow it, even at the risk of a court martial.
He said: “There are things that you do along the way that you know are right, and those that you absolutely feel are wrong, that I think it’s morally important to stand up against, and that sense of moral judgement is drilled into us as soldiers in the British army.”
It was while on duty in Kosovo that he wrote his song “No Bravery”. He also stood guard at the coffin of the Queen Mother during the days of her lying in State and was part of the funeral procession on April 9, 2002.”
“SEATO was dissolved on 30 June 1977 after many members lost interest and withdrew.”
Thank you. I haven’t followed SEATO. Still what does the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have to do with Asia?
“Still what does the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have to do with Asia?”
Nothing, of course. But since it still exists and SEATO doesn’t, the same crew that used NATO as an offensive force in Yugoslavia and Libya see it as the vehicle for projecting military power wherever they choose, without having to get input from Congress.
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