[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: Nato a Threat to Europe, Must be Disbanded

Sat Nov 13 23:24:53 PST 2004

>
>
>The Guardian (UK)
>November 8, 2004
>
>Comment
>
>Nato is a threat to Europe and must be disbanded
>
>Our security doesn't depend on the US; we should free
>up our thinking
>
>By Jonathan Steele
>
>The Guardian They walk the walk. They talk the talk.
>But they don't think the think. In the wake of the huge
>support given to George Bush last week, it's time we
>realised how different America's majority culture is,
>and changed our policies accordingly.
>
>What Americans share with Europeans are not values, but
>institutions. The distinction is crucial. Like us, they
>have a separation of powers between executive and
>legislature, an independent judiciary, and the rule of
>law. But the American majority's social and moral
>values differ enormously from those which guide most
>Europeans.
>
>Its dangerous ignorance of the world, a mixture of
>intellectual isolationism and imperial intervention
>abroad, is equally alien. In the United States more
>people have guns than have passports. Is there one
>European nation of which the same is true?
>
>Of course, millions of US citizens do share "European"
>values. But to believe that this minority amounts to
>48% and that America is deeply polarised is incorrect.
>It encourages the illusion that things may improve when
>Bush is gone. In fact, most Kerry voters are as
>conservative as the Bush majority on the issues which
>worry Europeans. Kerry never came out for US even-
>handedness on the Israel-Palestine conflict, or for a
>withdrawal from Iraq.
>
>Many commentators now argue for Europe to distance
>itself. But vague pleas for greater European coherence
>or for Tony Blair to end his close links with the White
>House are not enough. The call should not be for "more"
>independence. We need full independence.
>
>We must go all the way, up to the termination of Nato.
>An alliance which should have wound up when the Soviet
>Union collapsed now serves almost entirely as a device
>for giving the US an unfair and unreciprocated droit de
>regard over European foreign policy.
>
>As long as we are officially embedded as America's
>allies, the default option is that we have to support
>America and respect its "leadership". This makes it
>harder for European governments to break ranks, for
>fear of being attacked as disloyal. The default option
>should be that we, like they, have our interests.
>Sometimes they will coincide. Sometimes they will
>differ. But that is normal.
>
>In other parts of the world, a handful of countries
>have bilateral defence treaties with the US. Some in
>Europe might want the same if Nato didn't exist. In
>contrast, a few members of the European Union who chose
>to take the considerable risk of staying neutral during
>the cold war - such as Austria, Finland, Ireland and
>Sweden - see no need to join Nato in the much safer
>world we live in today.
>
>So it makes no sense that the largest and most powerful
>European states, those who are most able to defend
>themselves, should cling to outdated anxiety and the
>notion that their ultimate security depends on the US.
>Do we really need American nuclear weapons to protect
>us against terrorists or so-called rogue states? The
>last time Europe was in dire straits, as Nazi tanks
>swept across the continent in 1939 and 1940, the US
>stayed on the sidelines until Pearl Harbor.
>
>There is a school of thought which says that Nato is
>virtually defunct, so there is no need to worry about
>it. That view is sometimes heard even in Russia, where
>the so-called "realists" argue that Russia cannot
>oppose its old enemy, in spite of Washington's
>undisguised efforts to encircle it with bases in the
>Caucasus and central Asia. The more Moscow tries, they
>say, the more it seems to justify US claims that Russia
>is expansionist - however odd that sounds, coming from
>a far more expansionist Washington.
>
>It is true that Nato is unlikely ever again to function
>with the unanimity it showed during the cold war. The
>lesson from Iraq is that the alliance has become no
>more than a "coalition of the reluctant", with key
>members like France and Germany opting out of joint
>action.
>
>But it is wrong to be complacent about Nato's alleged
>impotence or irrelevance. Nato gives the US a
>significant instrument for moral and political
>pressure. Europe is automatically expected to tag along
>in going to war, or in the post-conflict phase, as in
>Afghanistan or Iraq. Who knows whether Iran and Syria
>will come next? Bush has four more years in power and
>there is little likelihood that his successors in the
>White House will be any less interventionist.
>
>Nato, in short, has become a threat to Europe. Its
>existence also acts as a continual drag on Europe's
>efforts to build its own security institutions. Certain
>member countries, particularly Britain, constantly look
>over their shoulders for fear of upsetting big brother.
>This has an inhibiting effect on every initiative.
>
>France's more robust stance is pilloried by the
>Atlanticists as nostalgia for unilateral grandeur
>instead of being seen as part of France's pro-European
>search for a security project that will help us all.
>
>Paradoxically, one argument for voting no in the
>referendum on the European constitution is based on
>this. Paul Quiles, a French socialist former defence
>minister, points out that Britain forced a change in
>the constitution's text so that Europe's common
>security policy, even as it tries to gather strength,
>is required to give primacy to Nato. Without control
>over its own defence, he argues, greater European
>integration makes little sense.
>
>The immediate priority on the road to European
>independence is to abandon support for Bush's
>disastrous Iraq policy and get behind the majority of
>Iraqis who want the US to stop attacking their cities
>and leave the country. They feel US forces only provoke
>more insecurity and death.
>
>Since Bush's victory two Nato members, Hungary and the
>Netherlands (which has a rightwing government), have
>said they will pull their troops out in March next
>year. Their moves show the falsity of the "old Europe,
>new Europe" split. In the post-communist countries, as
>much as in western Europe, majorities consistently
>opposed Bush's Iraq adventure, whatever their more
>timid governments said. Wanting to withdraw support for
>US foreign policy is not a left or right issue.
>
>Ending Nato would not mean that Europe rejects good
>relations with the US. Nor does it rule out police and
>intelligence collaboration on issues of concern, such
>as the way to protect our countries against terrorism.
>Europe could still join the US in war, if there was an
>international consensus and the electorates of
>individual countries supported it.
>
>But Europeans must reach their decisions from a
>position of genuine independence. The US has always
>based its approach to Europe on a calculation of
>interest rather than from sentimental motives. Europe
>should do no less. We can and, for the most part,
>should be America's friends. Allies, no longer.
>
>Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1345790,00.html
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand