NATO and
institutions to save us from the Soviets are now the threat themselves!
By សតិវ
អតុ
In the area of foreign affairs we can really see the effects
of the end of the Soviet Union . The US is now the
main superpower and there is no real opposition to it. The US acts as a superpower on steroids, with
troops all over the world, fighting
multiple wars on almost every major continent, accept Antarctica and Australia . Two
countries are now occupied by the US ,
Afghanistan and Iraq . Just
recently the US military is building
up a presence in Africa .
Islamic revolt has been the major challenge to the US superiority
and imperialism. The US
has made the destruction of Islamic movements such as ISIS (Islamic State), a
major priority. There are several organizations the US
has targeted, such as al Qaeda and various local versions of that group
throughout the Middle East and Africa . There
are also the independent Islamic groups such as the Taliban in Afghanistan .
Many Marxist anti-imperialist groups have had to adjust to the fact that there
are no more Marxist superpowers to support them. Right now they just don’t have
the numbers of people and support networks of the Islamic groups. ISIS was the
one group that had the audacity to take land that the US had conquered when it took over Iraq . President
Barack Obama decided
to go after ISIS and destroy them as a country. When President Donald Trump
took over he followed the same plan to first destroy the country that ISIS had set up and then carried on the extermination
campaign to wipe that group off of the face of the Earth, along with all its
people and supporters. No attempt was ever made to negotiate an end to the war
against ISIS . The US was intent on destroying that
movement completely. In Europe and the US ,
those who are recruited to join
ISIS are considered mentally ill. After all who would oppose US democracy
and the system we all love so well? Any opinion in favor of ISIS in any way is
viewed as a crime in the US
and Europe .
And the new modern
American Army takes no prisoners. There is no reason to expand Guantanamo because the US has allowed the Iraqi Army to
kill all prisoners right after they are caught. Some prisoners have been thrown
off the tops of buildings to save on bullets. This country has made it clear
there is no tolerance for those who dare rebel against the US Empire. The
barbarity of today’s military far surpasses the kinds of war crimes committed
during World War II, at least on the ally’s side. And while the US
continues to commit all kinds of war crimes, the troops are constantly hailed
as heroes here at home. And the constant lie that gets repeated over
and over—“they are fighting to keep us free.” They are fighting to maintain
an empire.
That brings us to the issues of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO). The alliance was supposedly needed to keep out the Soviet
Union and the Warsaw Pact. So the Soviet
Union fell and the Warsaw Pact faded away. But not NATO. It has
expanded. Now many Warsaw Pact nations belong to NATO. So what does NATO really
do? It is a major tool of the empire.
The
pro-NATO argument is that it keeps the peace in Europe
and allows the West to efficiently cooperate on counter-terrorism and
humanitarian military operations……
According to Vox,
“Everything you need to know about the military alliance that's freaking out Russia :”
“The positive spin is that NATO
has adapted to the post-Cold War world, and now helps prevent wars, protect
weak states and peoples, and promote democracy.”
The negative spin is that NATO allows the wealthiest and
most powerful nations to bully the weaker ones. While it prevents war, it also
prevents any kind of change. Revolution is nearly impossible since an attack on
any NATO country is considered an attack on all. That part of the alliance has
allowed the US to pull NATO
allies into wars it started, such as the war in Afghanistan . The US had demanded
and got NATO troops and support from the other NATO nations. It gives the false
illusion that the war in Afghanistan
is a war that the entire world, or most of it, is behind. And how democratic is
it to force nations into a war they never had a chance to debate? While the
main enemy of the Afghanistan
puppet regime is the Taliban, there are others in that country who have opposed
the US
presence and they have also taken military action. One such group is the
Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan.[1]
NATO and the European Union are control
mechanism to prevent internal changes in European countries. The best example
of how it works can be seen in Greece .
By 2010 the Greek government
was in trouble and in debt. In order to pay off its debts the government put in
place severe austerity measures. The people fought the measures on every front.
But the one thing they put a lot of faith in was elections. They voted in a
leftist party known as Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς, (Translated:
Synaspismós Rizospastikís Aristerás), mostly known by the abbreviation SYRIZA.
At times that party has been supported by the Maoist Communist Organization of
Greece (KOE). Voters rejected the Eurozone creditors' bailout terms in a voting
referendum, in 2015, only for Alexis
Tsipras, the elected leader, to endorse even tougher terms for a third bailout
agreed the following month. Despite having popular support for turning back the
austerity plans, the European Union was able to force the party and the nation
to keep the austerity measures in place.
The people of Greece and SYRIZA had
to decide if it was more important to overturn the austerity or to stay in
the European Union. They stayed in the European Union and now the leadership of
that body has more control over Greece
than their own political leaders.
For examples of NATO being used to interfere in a European
nation we only have to look to Ukraine .
Nearly every minor superpower (such as Russia ) is interfering in Ukraine and its
civil war. Ukraine
is actually
considering joining NATO. If it does it will be joining an organization
that has lead to constant meddling in that nation's internal affairs.
All of this shows us that it is not the Soviet
Union that is interfering in the internal affairs of individual
European nations, but it is NATO and the European Union. It could be argued
that Eastern European countries were more controlled and lacked more autonomy
than countries in the West, back when there was a Warsaw Pact. But today it is
the West (The US and major European powers) that puts more control over the
vary countries that NATO was originally supposed to defend.
For third world countries, they are now so dependent on
Western powers the fall of the Soviet Union
has been a major disaster. Marxist-Leninists are nearly gone from Africa . Political experiments in Nicaragua , Mozambique
and Angola
were among the many nations where newer, more democratic examples of Marxism
were being tried. For those of us on the left, these nations held out great
promise. Thanks to the constant meddling of President Ronald Reagan and then
the actual collapse of the Soviet Union all
such experiments have been scrapped. The Sandinistas, FRELIMO and other Marxist
parties changed their alliances to the Democratic Socialists of Europe[2] to
get development aid. There was nowhere else to get it. China has been no help to such countries and no
other nation, other than the US
and European nations, have the kind of development aid such nations need.
Such nations used to be able to bargain with one of the two
super powers to get a good deal on aid and weapons. Now they have only one
superpower and there is no bargaining. Many nations have learned the hard way
as did when Yemen the
leaders there refused to back former President George H. W. Bush in his war
against Saddam Hussein (صدام حسين), in the first
Iraq war, in 1991. Yemen
was punished for not supporting the only super power left in the world.
There hasn't been a Marxist revolution since the Sandinistas
and the only hope for one right now seems to be in India , with the advancement of the
Communist Party of India (Maoist) which
is the only Marxist group with growing influence. If they win, can they hold on
to that country against a US
attack? We may find out in years to come.
For now we live in a stagnant world where one US empire does
what it dam well pleases. Foreign people in the less wealthy countries are
little better off than slaves. There is absolutely nothing to counter the
belligerent US military, a force that acts drunk with power. When they wiped ISIS off the map they wanted to let other groups and
national leaders know they won't tolerate dissent. We are supposed to support
the US
because they tolerate a diversity of views, a trait that is championed as a
cultural bastion of the West. But that is a bold face lie. Until someone can
stand up to the US
military machine we are all just the victims of a massive world-wide bully.
[2] The European Socialist
Network, is what is left of Europe 's
democratic socialist movement. It originally supported actual socialism in its
earlier days, since the days of François Mitterrand, starting in 1981, the
party drifted right and is now just a liberal party much like the US Democratic
Party.
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