Neal was interviewed but Channel 4's editors included almost nothing that he said about why he traveled from Chicago to oppose NATO.
Readers may recall that I noted two people in the audience had pushed back on Russia bashing at a counter summit held in Washington DC over the weekend. I am now in touch with one of them and, with his permission, am sharing his report about attending the actual summit on July 9.
Nonstop Demonization Of Russian Government And Putin
by Neal Resnikoff, Chicago Antiwar Coalition
This morning I went through the huge security perimeter around the NATO Summit meeting place, without any problem, to get to a "conversation" with Defense Ministers from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania organized by the POLITICO organization.
The entire time was focused on emphasizing the importance of opposing Russia, including bombing Russia, with nonstop demonization of the Russian government and Putin. There was no mention that the NATO expansionism and other threats and attacks on Russia risks a World War IIII, a possibly nuclear war.
There was maybe a minute of expression of support for Israel and the actions they are taking.
The ministers said their governments would work with whoever is elected in the U.S. One emphasized that the U.S. goveernment is an indispensible partner.
No questions were allowed.
The NATO delegates are obviously worried about opposition. The ministers had body guards, including one in military uniform.
After the program, on my way back down the street, past the entrance for delegates and the convention center, I was interviewed by Channel 4 of Washington. They seemed surprised that I came from Chicago to oppose the NATO Summit, and wanted to know why. I explained that NATO is a war mongering organization using our tax money to risk a possible World War III. The reporter said he was sure my interview would get on the air at 5 or 6 p.m. (Eastern time).
Now to cool off a bit after doing a good amount of walking from and to the Metro station in the 95 degree heat. All the counter NATO protests in the heat we have had on the weekend have been worth it to put the heat on NATO. As one person remarked to me, without our emphasis on NATO, she would not have been aware of it and what it does. Onward with the struggle against the capitalist U.S. ruling class and its NATO seeking to ensure power and profits for their banks and big corporations
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Prior to traveling to the summit, the author sent the following background information and I am reposting it here for context.
No to NATO. Act against the 75th Anniversary NATO Summit in Washington, D.C. from July 5-10. Join in actions.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was organized by the U.S. government. The U.S. government, in one of its characteristic lies, has described NATO as an organization for defense of its members. The fact is that NATO has been an aggressive war mongering bloc, ruthlessly attacking a number of countries over the years, and threatening others. For example, most of its members have been in support of the U.S. government backed Israeli genocidal massacre of Palestinians, and the provocations against Russia and its national security.
NATO members have been threatening a World War III. One way has been by provoking Russia into military action. NATO has used a Ukraine government the U.S. government set up in 2014 as a proxy against Russia. It threatened Russia by aiming to have NATO nuclear bases along the 1200 mile Ukraine-Russia border.
In recent weeks the U.S. government and its NATO have enabled the Ukrainian military to attack inside Russia with missiles even though the Russian government said that it will retaliate for such actions as well as against U.S./NATO escalating the sorts of arms it provides to Ukraine.
For example, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on April 21 said, “We will increase the intensity of strikes against logistics centers and storage bases for Western weapons [in Ukraine]."
On June 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out that while Ukrainian troops might be pulling the trigger, the U.S. and its allies are providing the intelligence and targeting information. "If someone deems it possible … to strike our territory why shouldn't we supply similar weapons to those regions of the world, where they will be used against sensitive sites of these countries?”
The Russian Security Council's Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev warned that NATO’s “military equipment and specialists fighting against us will be destroyed both on the territory of … Ukraine and on the territory of other countries, should strikes be carried out from there against Russian territory." He added that Russia is basing itself on the reality that all long-range weapons supplied to Ukraine are "directly operated by servicemen from NATO countries," which is tantamount to participation in the war against Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that destabilizing actions by the U.S. represent “a direct threat to both our country and China….The implementation of U.S. plans to deploy ground-based INF missiles [ground-based intermediate and shorter-range missiles] will not go unanswered by us.”
As part of efforts of peace and justice loving people to oppose the U.S./NATO provoked threats of a possibly nuclear World War III, and other unjust and illegal wars by the U.S. government and its NATO, don’t we need to oppose NATO, to demand its dismantlement, to declare: NO TO NATO!
NATO is having a 75th anniversary Summit in Washington, D.C. in coming days. One important way to oppose NATO will be an alternative Summit and rallies including outside the NATO Summit. One of the endorsers is Chicago Antiwar Coalition (CAWC). Please join in if you can. Some of the details can be found at NoNATOYesPeace.org
There will be a program in Washington, D.C. on Friday, July 5 6-8 at Busboys; a counter Summit from 9:30-5:30 on Saturday at St. Mark’s Church at 301 A St. SE; a rally at noon on Sunday and then a march to another rally from 2-4 across from the White House; and actions outside of the NATO Summit at the Washington Convention Center on Lew Place NW on Tuesday and Wednesday from 10-6. Some of this will be live streamed; see the web site for up-to-date information on that.
Here is some factual information about the history of NATO and what it has been up to over the years, and why we should demand its elimination:
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, NATO has escalated its moves. Its “out of area” military operation in Afghanistan in 2011 lasted for 20 years. Since 1994 the African counties Algeria, Egypt, Mauretania, Morocco and Tunisia are together with Israel and Jordan in the NATO partnership program Mediterranean Dialog (MD) NATO. Thus began a “Global NATO” project to use the NATO military alliance from the South China Sea to the Caribbean Sea and Colombia in South America, and Australia.
Why the U.S. organized NATO
After World War II, in 1945, when others faced the massive task of rebuilding their devastated nations and struggled to establish their independence, U.S. corporations and their government seized on what they saw as an opportunity to dominate countries that had been occupied by Nazi Germany, Italy and in other countries where fighting took place.
The U.S. government was concerned that people fighting for independence and those opposing the extension of capitalism would disrupt U.S. plans. U.S. corporations needed a free hand to push their way into markets, acquire natural resources cheaply, conduct unequal trade, and make deals for foreign investments that would enrich U.S. bankers while using people as cheap labor.
Evidence that this was a very conscious plan by the U.S. government can be seen in remarks that Secretary of State Cordell Hull gave early in World War II, in 1942, including: “Leadership toward a new system of international relationships in trade and other economic affairs will devolve very largely upon the United States because of our great economic strength. We should assume this leadership, and the responsibility that goes with it, primarily for reasons of pure national self-interest.”
The U.S. ruling class, in addition to economic arrangements favorable to U.S. corporations, needed to try to intimidate the people of the world with a military organization. The U.S. quickly created NATO in 1949.
The U.S. used NATO to introduce the first nuclear weapons in Europe, first in Britain, then later into Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. The U.S. proclaimed its “right to first use,” that is, to employ nuclear weapons even if no one else was attacking with nukes.
U.S./NATO nuclear weapons remain in these countries today under the same guidelines-- that they can be used for a so-called pre-emptive attack or in the case of another country using massive amounts of conventional weapons against them.
On NATO and the USSR
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, one of the Allies with the U.S. and Britain during World War II, supported independence struggles of various peoples after the war. And it was outside the U.S. economic orbit. Despite the devastation it had suffered, it still had its experienced military, and its independent economic system. It was able to severely limit U.S./NATO attempts to get access to the vast markets, resources and strategic locations of the constituent Soviet republics that stretched across Europe and Asia.
So the U.S. and other NATO members and their NATO organization demonized and threatened the Soviet Union, which had played a major role in defeating the German Nazis. The U.S. rulers, like the Nazis, viewed the Soviet Union as a threat to capitalist power. It is no wonder, then, that West Germany, which was supposed to be demilitarized after World War II, was made into a member of NATO in 1955.
Later, in 1991, when the USSR along with the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, the U.S., with the help of NATO, organized to recruit the republics which had been members of the USSR, and also aimed to draw its socialist allies in Eastern Europe into NATO.
Since 1999, U.S.-led NATO proceeded to wage war on three continents—all outside of the North Atlantic-- against countries not part of NATO. NATO attacked Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya.
After this, the U.S. with NATO began to surround Russia and China with additional military bases in some former Soviet federal republics such as Lithuania, Latvia, and Georgia, as well as in former Warsaw Pact members such as Romania, Bulgaria, and Poland.
NATO worked with the U.S. in aggression against Afghanistan and Libya. In 2001, the U.S., with NATO, illegally invaded Afghanistan, killing upwards of a hundred thousand people. They installed at least 400 military bases. NATO forces peaked at about 150,000 in 2011. Troops from over 50 NATO members, partners, and other associated states participated under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, the largest number of national contingents in any war, much less in one nation.
To conclude, this all comes in a context in which the U.S. capitalist ruling class has been ruthless since 1776 in expanding itself in the world for profits and power for its banks and other businesses. It massacred the Native Americans. It enslaved millions of Africans. It dropped atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Now it is backing the genocidal massacre of Palestinians, some 40,000 so far. NATO has been an arm of the ruthless barbarity of the U.S. capitalist ruling class.
We need to stop this ruthless U.S. ruling class and its capitalist system and all of its rotten actions. Please join in to do that. One way you can do that is against NATO in Washington, D.C. in coming days. Or you can join in or support any of the plenty of actions for peace and justice around these days. What do you think? –Neal Resnikoff
