Stop NATO
December 18, 2009
Afghanistan: World’s Lengthiest War Has Just Begun
Rick Rozoff
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The higher number of Defense Department contractors, 160,000, added to over 100,000 troops – with the likely prospect of both numbers climbing yet more – will result in over a quarter of a million U.S. personnel serving under the Pentagon and NATO. The latter has 42,000 non-U.S. troops fighting under its command currently and pledges of 8,000 more to date, with thousands in addition to be conscripted after the London conference on Afghanistan next month. Approximately 35,000 U.S. soldiers are also assigned to NATO’s ISAF and if the 33,000 new American troops are similarly deployed the North Atlantic bloc will have over 120,000 forces fighting a land war in Asia. Along with a Pakistani army of 700,000 active duty troops fighting on the other side of the border and an Afghan army of 100,000 soldiers, there will soon be well over a million military personnel engaged in a war with a few hundred al-Qaeda and a few thousand Taliban forces.
———-
Despite U.S. President Barack Obama’s pledge in his December 1 address at the West Point Military Academy that deploying 30,000 more of his nation’s troops to Afghanistan would be coupled with “a goal of starting to withdraw forces from the country in July 2011,” everything else he has said and all the facts on the ground suggest that the war will continue into the indefinite future.
At a press conference a week before the West Point troop surge announcement he said “it is my intention to finish the job,” and in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech on December 10 he affirmed: “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.”
History establishes that it is easier to deploy to than to withdraw from an active war zone.
The White House has already increased U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan from 32,000 at the beginning of the year to over twice that amount – 68,000 – currently, with the first contingent of even more reinforcements arriving this week. The 30,000 additional troops headed to the war front and the 3,000 more support forces pledged by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will push American military personnel in Afghanistan to over 100,000.
That number, likely to be increased yet further and accompanied by a veritable invasion of private military contractors and State Department operatives, will be augmented by over 10,000 more non-U.S. troops serving under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), bringing combined American and NATO regular military forces to well over 150,000 and total Western personnel to over 300,000 with an estimated surge of as many as 56,000 new U.S. contractors. With the addition of assorted security, intelligence, private contracting and other military camp followers from NATO nations, the figure could top a third of a million.
An occupation and warfighting force of those dimensions is not designed for a limited mission or a short stay.
In fact on December 6 U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones (former top NATO military commander in Europe) gave the lie to the 2011 withdrawal anodyne in an interview with CNN when he brashly asserted “We have strategic interests in South Asia that should not be measured in terms of finite times. We’re going to be in the region for a long time.”
Jones also emphasized the extension of the war in space as well as time by stating American reinforcements and redeployments would concentrate on eastern and southern Afghanistan to “eliminate the safe havens” inside Pakistan, a nation with a population of 175 million and nuclear weapons.
His claims, more authoritative than those of the president he serves, were echoed by Pentagon chief Robert Gates. Earlier this week it was reported that “In a visit to the war zone last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Afghanistan’s senior military officials that while the U.S. looks forward to the day when the Afghans can take control of their country, the United States would have a large number of forces in Afghanistan for some time beyond July 2011.”
Gates in his own words: “This is a relationship forged in blood. We will see it [through] to the end.” [1] 
To demonstrate the scale of the U.S. and NATO intensification of the war in Afghanistan – so urgent, evidently, that it is being qualitatively escalated during the Christmas season – in addition to Gates’s visit to the Afghan war front, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, new German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor Zu Guttenberg and other top Western military and political leaders have recently traveled to Afghanistan to inspect their respective nations’ military forces stationed there.
On December 16 the first of the latest 30,000 U.S. troops committed to the war and the 16,000 that have received deployment orders since Obama’s December 1 speech, 1,500 Marines, arrived in the nation, prompting Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell to crow “The surge has begun in earnest.” [2]
The Washington Post ran a feature on December 16 based on a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) – “which provides background information to members of Congress on a bipartisan basis” – in which the CRS stated “it expects an additional 26,000 to 56,000 contractors to be sent to Afghanistan. That would bring the number of contractors in the country to anywhere from 130,000 to 160,000.”
In addition, that already astronomical figure “could increase further if the new [administration] strategy includes a more robust construction and nation building effort.” The report also remarked that as of a year ago contractors accounted for 69 percent of Defense Department personnel in Afghanistan and as such “represented the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by the Defense Department in any conflict in the history of the United States.” [3]
The higher number of Defense Department contractors, 160,000, added to over 100,000 troops – with the likely prospect of both numbers climbing yet more – will result in over a quarter of a million U.S. personnel serving under the Pentagon and NATO. The latter has 42,000 non-U.S. troops fighting under its command currently and pledges of 8,000 more to date, with thousands in addition to be conscripted after the London conference on Afghanistan next month. Approximately 35,000 U.S. soldiers are also assigned to NATO’s ISAF and if the 33,000 new American troops are similarly deployed the North Atlantic bloc will have over 120,000 forces fighting a land war in Asia. Along with a Pakistani army of 700,000 active duty troops fighting on the other side of the border and an Afghan army of 100,000 soldiers, there will soon be well over a million military personnel engaged in a war with a few hundred al-Qaeda and a few thousand Taliban forces. 
Washington’s Afghan surge is not limited to uniformed personnel. The Wall Street Journal reported that “The White House hopes to have 1,000 State Department, Treasury and Department of Agriculture personnel in Afghanistan by next month, up from 300 a year ago.”
The newspaper revealed that a former psychiatric hospital in the state of Indiana is currently “the staging ground for one of the biggest deployments of U.S. civilians since the Vietnam War.” Non-Pentagon government officials en route to Afghanistan “are often paired with members of the Indiana National Guard, who are preparing for their own deployment in Afghanistan.
“Trainees spend a week on a make-believe forward operating base in the forest, where they go through military operations with the National Guard as if they were already deployed in Afghanistan. The civilian recruits learn to perform their own security functions.” [4]
The dramatic escalation of the war is also not limited to increases in personnel. The U.S. Defense Department recently announced that it was expanding the deployment of Stealth warplanes and high-altitude, long-endurance Reaper “hunter-killer” drones which are equipped with fifteen times more deadly missiles than its Predator predecessor. “[T]he Air Force is looking toward developing unmanned, long-range surveillance aircraft that also can carry warheads so they can be used during combat.” [5]
The U.S. Air Force’s latest stealth reconnaissance drone, dubbed “the Beast of Kandahar,” resembles “the much larger, swept-wing B-2 Stealth bomber, and officials confirmed this month that the military has begun using the classified, unarmed drone in Afghanistan.” [6]
The skies over Afghanistan are crisscrossed by U.S. and NATO surveillance aircraft, bombers and helicopter gunships to such a degree that for Afghans to even leave their homes means to risk their lives. Three Afghans were killed and one wounded on December 17 in Kandahar province when NATO attack helicopters obliterated their minibus.
Matters are no less deadly on the Pakistani side of the border. The day before the Afghan attack, the U.S. launched ten missiles from five drones in the second of two assaults, “an unusually intense bombardment,” [7] into North Waziristan, killing at least twenty people, identified as always as Taliban and al-Qaeda targets.
A Los Angeles Times feature on December 13 revealed that “Senior US officials are pushing to expand CIA drone strikes beyond Pakistan’s tribal region. 
“After confirmation that the CIA has been operating drone strikes in Pakistani territory, a new report says the US is seeking to expand the attacks into the country’s cities.”
The report added that “CIA spokesman George Little quoted spy agency Director Leon Panetta as saying that US has been launching the attacks from secret airfields in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” [8] 
The U.S. is not alone in ratcheting up the longest and largest war in the world. 
On December 13 U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus said “The number of European NATO troops in Afghanistan should swell beyond the 8,000 troops already promised….” [9]
The Pentagon is dispatching 4,000 101st Airborne paratroopers to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan in addition to a parachute battalion from the 82nd Airborne to join an American Stryker brigade and NATO ally Canada’s forces there. The deployments are part of a plan to “flood areas close to Afghanistan’s second largest city with Canadian and U.S. troops” and to “assist Canadian Forces to create a security noose around Kandahar City.” [10]
Reuters recently reported that “Germany plans to send up to 2,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan in response to requests from the United States and other NATO partners,” citing the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung which wrote “the United States and NATO members had already received signals to this effect.” [11] Germany currently has 4,500 troops stationed in Afghanistan, the third largest contingent after the U.S. and Britain. The 4,500 figure is the maximum number permitted by the nation’s parliament, but will soon be exceeded in another reversal of the nation’s post-World War II limits on waging wars abroad.
Agence France-Presse reported that “NATO hopes to send two tactical groups, up to 3,000 troops, to north Afghanistan under German command,” according to German General Karl-Heinz Lather, the chief of staff of NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, who said “From a military point of view, the allied headquarters in Europe thinks it necessary to send two tactical groups into this zone.” [12]
Herve Morin, the defense minister of France, which has 3,300 troops under NATO command in Afghanistan, announced that he may deploy “medium-sized supplementary troops” after the January 28 conference on Afghanistan in London. [13] 800 French Legionnaires are at the moment engaged in a fierce combat operation along with American counterparts east of the Afghan capital.
The top NATO military commander in Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, was in Poland earlier this week to “to discuss the Alliance’s ISAF mission in Afghanistan” [14] and to recruit more Polish troops for the war. Warsaw has already pledged to raise its force level to nearly 3,000 troops as it recently signed a status of forces agreement to base U.S. missiles and troops, the first foreign soldiers on its soil since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact eighteen years ago.
The Czech Republic “is for the first time in history sending its own helicopter unit to Afghanistan.”
“Czech soldiers and three upgraded Mi-171S transport helicopters will be…sent to the Sarana base in the southeast of the country to serve the needs of the NATO forces in the ISAF mission….The unit underwent comprehensive training for one and half a years, for instance in the Alps mountains and in desert areas in Israel and Texas….Czech soldiers will be first trained by their U.S. colleagues.” [15]
Spain has announced its will send more than 500 additional soldiers to Afghanistan, joining NATO and NATO partner states like Italy (1,000), Georgia (1,000), Britain, Hungary, Slovakia, Colombia, South Korea, Mongolia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Armenia in committing new forces. Troops from five continents with Australia included.
Not only full NATO member states but Partnership for Peace nations are being strong-armed to provide more troops. Finland and Sweden, both of which have increased their troop strength in northern Afghanistan in recent months, have been involved in their first combat operations since World War II in the first case and in almost 200 years in the second. Troops from both nations were engaged in the latest of a series of firefights on December 13.
The Bundeswehr will soon train the first contingent of troops from former Soviet republic and current Collective Security Treaty Organization member Armenia in Germany for action in Afghanistan.
The defense minister of nominally neutral Austria, Norbert Darabos, said that the U.S. and Britain were bullying his nation to send more troops to Afghanistan, bemoaning the fact that “America’s pressure on Austria is relatively intense, sometimes it is a little bit improper” and asserting that “Austria is a sovereign country [which] will not give in to the pressure.” [16]
What Darabos may be concerned about in part is the rising rate of NATO casualties in Afghanistan. During the past few days two Dutch troops were injured, one critically, in a roadside bomb attack in Uruzgan province. 
An Estonian soldier was killed in a similar incident in Helmand province, bringing the country’s casualties to four killed and 23 wounded this year.
Two more British soldiers were killed this week, raising United Kingdom deaths to 239, 102 this year.
Nearly 500 Western soldiers have been killed so far this year, 305 of them American, compared to 155 U.S. military personnel lost during all of last year.
Undaunted, on December 16 the U.S. House of Representatives – by a vote of 395 to 34 – “passed a massive military spending bill to defray annual expenses, fund operations in Afghanistan, and pay for the troop withdrawal from Iraq.”
The $636.3 billion package, “which does not include monies for President Barack Obama’s recently announced decision to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan,” allots “80 million to acquire more unmanned Predator drones, a key tool in the US air war in Afghanistan and Pakistan….With little public debate in the United States, the pace of the drone bombing raids has steadily increased, starting last year during ex-president George W. Bush’s final months in office and now under Obama’s tenure.” [17]
In approving the Pentagon’s request, the American Congress endorsed “$130 billion to cover the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq” excluding an “estimated $30 billion that will be needed to fund President Barack Obama’s recent decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.”
The bill also authorized the funding of “new Air Force global strike programs – including work on new manned and unmanned systems – Army brigade combat team modernization, a Navy attack submarine, and the Navy’s new Carrier Long-Range Strike system….Analysts called the decision a victory for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has lobbied the White House for more funding.
“The Obama administration will add $100 billion to the Pentagon’s 2011-15 base budget plan to cover the rising cost of personnel and pressing modernization needs….” [18]
Militarism is a psychopathology and war can be an addiction.
Analyst Andrei Grozin of the Central Asia Department of the Institute of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] Countries in Russia averred an opinion of his own on why the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan and acquired military bases in Central Asia and why they will be loath to leave.
“[I]t’s important for Americans to coordinate the efforts of various structures, which are interested in, on the one hand, reducing traditional Russian influence on the authorities and society and preventing China from strengthening its influence, on the other hand….”
The same source’s comments were paraphrased: “One of the apparent geopolitical interests of the US in the region is to establish control over energy resources and pipelines that transport oil and gas to Central and Western Europe through Russia and also to China and Iran.” [19]
The prolongation and unprecedented expansion of the world’s lengthiest war, now in its ninth and on January 1 to enter its tenth calendar year, are by no means limited to alleged concerns over al-Qaeda, evil and opium poppies.
….
Previous articles on Afghanistan:
U.S., NATO War In Afghanistan: Antecedents And Precedents
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/u-s-nato-war-in-afghanistan-antecedents-and-precedents
Christmas 2009: U.S., NATO To Expand New Millennium’s Longest War
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/christmas-2009-u-s-nato-to-expand-new-millenniums-longest-war
ABC Of West’s Global Military Network: Afghanistan, Baltics, Caucasus
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/abc-of-wests-global-military-network-afghanistan-baltics-caucasus
Afghanistan: West’s 21st Century War Risks Regional Conflagration
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/afghanistan-wests-21st-century-war-risks-regional-conflagration
U.S., NATO Poised For Most Massive War In Afghanistan’s History
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/u-s-nato-poised-for-most-massive-war-in-afghanistans-history
Broader Strategy: West’s Afghan War Targets Russia, China, Iran
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/broader-strategy-wests-afghan-war-targets-russia-china-iran
Following Afghan Election, NATO Intensifies Deployments, Carnage
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/following-afghan-election-nato-intensifies-deployments-carnage
U.S. Marines In The Caucasus As West Widens Afghan War
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/u-s-marines-in-the-caucasus-as-west-widens-afghan-war
Afghan War: NATO Builds History’s First Global Army
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/afghan-war-nato-builds-historys-first-global-army
Afghan War: NATO Trains Finland, Sweden For Conflict With Russia
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/afghan-war-nato-trains-finland-sweden-for-conflict-with-russia
West’s Afghan War And Drive Into Caspian Sea Basin
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/wests-afghan-war-and-drive-into-caspian-sea-basin
Afghanistan: U.S., NATO Wage World’s Largest, Longest War
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/afghanistan-u-s-nato-wage-worlds-largest-longest-war
Notes:
1) Associated Press, December 14, 2009
2) Associated Press, December 16, 2009
3) Washington Post, December 16, 2009
4) Wall Street Journal, December 18, 2009
5) Associated Press, December 16, 2009
6) Ibid
7) Trend News Agency, December 18, 2009
8) Press TV, December 14, 2009
9) Trend News Agency, December 13, 2009
10) Canwest News Service, December 17, 2009
11) Reuters, December 16, 2009
12) Agence France-Presse, December 15, 2009
13) Xinhua News Agency, December 17, 2009
14) Polish Radio, December 14, 2009
15) Czech News Agency, December 14, 2009
16) Trend News Agency, December 18, 2009
17) Agence France-Presse, December 17, 2009
18) Defense News, December 11, 2009
19) Voice of Russia, December 16, 2009
Categories: Uncategorized 
La guerra del Pent?gono en la Pen?nsula Ar?biga
December 18, 2009 richardrozoff Leave a comment 
Stop NATO
December 18, 2009
La guerra del Pent?gono en la Pen?nsula Ar?biga
Rick Rozoff
Traducido del ingl?s para Rebeli?n por Germ?n Leyens 
http://rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=97234
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Yemen se convertir? en el campo de batalla para una guerra por encargo entre EE.UU. y Arabia Saud? – cuyas relaciones de Estado a Estado son de las m?s fuertes y m?s durables de toda la era posterior a la Segunda Guerra Mundial – por una parte e Ir?n por la otra. 
Tal vez sea imposible determinar el momento exacto en el cual un sediciente guerrero santo apoyado por EE.UU. – entrenado para perpetrar actos de terrorismo urbano y derribar aviones comerciales – deja de ser un combatiente por la libertad y se convierte en terrorista. Pero una suposici?n segura es que eso ocurre cuando ya no es ?til para Washington. Un terrorista que sirve los intereses de EE.UU. es un combatiente por la libertad; un combatiente por la libertad que no los sirve es un terrorista. 
Los yemen?es son los ?ltimos en aprender la ley de la selva del Pent?gono y la Casa Blanca. Junto con Ir?n y Afganist?n, que el especialista en contrainsurgencia Stanley McChrystal utiliz? para perfeccionar sus t?cnicas, Yemen se une a las filas de otras naciones en las que el Pent?gono est? involucrado en ese tipo de guerra, llena de masacres de civiles y otras formas del llamado da?o colateral: Colombia, Mali, Pakist?n, Las Filipinas, Somalia y Uganda.
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BBC News inform? el 14 de diciembre de que 70 civiles murieron cuando aviones bombardearon un mercado en la aldea Bani Maan en el norte de Yemen. 
Las fuerzas armadas de la naci?n reivindicaron la responsabilidad del mort?fero ataque, pero un sitio en Internet de los rebeldes huz?es contra quienes iba dirigido ostensiblemente el ataque declar? que “aviones saud?es cometieron una masacre contra los residentes inocentes de Bani Maan.” [1] 
El r?gimen saud? entr? al conflicto armado entre los (ep?nimos) huz?es y el gobierno yemen? por cuenta de este ?ltimo a finales de noviembre y desde entonces ha sido acusado de lanzar ataques dentro de Yemen con tanques y aviones. Incluso antes del ?ltimo bombardeo numerosos yemen?es han muerto y miles han sido desplazados por los combates. Arabia Saud? tambi?n ha sido acusada de utilizar bombas de f?sforo. 
Adem?s, el grupo rebelde conocido como J?venes Creyentes, basado en la comunidad musulm?n chi? de Yemen que representa un 30% de la poblaci?n del pa?s de 23 millones, afirm? el 14 de diciembre que “aviones caza jet de EE.UU. han atacado la provincia Sa’ada de Yemen” y que “aviones caza jet de EE.UU. han lanzado 28 ataques contra la provincia noroccidental de Sa’ada.” [2] 
La edici?n del d?a anterior del Daily Telegraph inform? sobre discusiones con funcionarios militares de EE.UU. que declararon que “por temor a que Yemen se est? convirtiendo en un Estado fallido, EE.UU. ha enviado ahora una peque?a cantidad de equipos de fuerzas especiales para mejorar el entrenamiento del ej?rcito de Yemen como reacci?n ante la amenaza.” 
Cita a un funcionario an?nimo del Pent?gono, diciendo: “Yemen se est? convirtiendo en una base de reserva para las actividades de al-Qaeda en Pakist?n y Afganist?n.” [3]
La invocaci?n del espectro de al Qaeda es, sin embargo, un se?uelo. Los rebeldes en el norte de la naci?n son chi?es y no sun?es, mucho menos todav?a sun?es wahab?es del tipo saud?, y como tales no est?n vinculados a ning?n grupo o grupos que puedan clasificarse de al Qaeda, sino que es m?s probable que constituyan un objetivo de estos ?ltimos. 
Al servicio de los prop?sitos estadounidenses en la regi?n, la prensa brit?nica y estadounidense se ha estado refiriendo ?ltimamente a Yemen como la “patria ancestral” de Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden procede de una destacada familia multimillonaria ?rabe saud?, pero como su padre naci? en lo que es ahora la Rep?blica de Yemen hace m?s de un siglo, los medios occidentales est?n explotando un insignificante accidente hist?rico para sugerir un papel activo de Osama bin Laden en esa naci?n y para establecer un tenue v?nculo entre la guerra surasi?tica en Afganist?n y Pakist?n y la intervenci?n armada saud? y estadounidense en un conflicto civil en Yemen. 
En 2002, el Pent?gono despach? unos 100 soldados, seg?n algunas informaciones fuerzas especiales de Boinas Verdes, a Yemen para entrenar a los militares del pa?s. En ese caso, por haber sucedido dos a?os despu?s del atentado suicida contra el destructor de la Armada USS Cole en el puerto meridional yemen? de Ad?n, atribuido a al Qaeda, y acompa?ado por ataques de drones contra sus dirigentes, Washington justific? sus acciones como represalias por ese incidente, as? como por los ataques en la ciudad de Nueva York y en Washington, D.C. el a?o anterior. 
El contexto actual es diferente y una guerra de contrainsurgencia respaldada por EE.UU. en Yemen no tendr? nada que ver con el combate contra supuestas amenazas de al Qaeda, sino formar? de hecho parte integral de la estrategia de expandir la guerra afgana a c?rculos conc?ntricos cada vez m?s amplios incluyendo a Asia del Sur y Central, el C?ucaso y el Golfo P?rsico, el Sudeste Asi?tico y el Golfo de Ad?n, el Cuerno de ?frica y Arabia. La ansiosamente esperada partida del presidente George W. Bush podr? haber llevado al fin de la guerra global oficial contra el terror, a la que se refieren ahora como operaciones de contingencias en ultramar, pero nada ha cambiado excepto el nombre. 
El 13 de diciembre el m?ximo comandante del Comando Central del Pent?gono a cargo de las guerras en Afganist?n, Iraq y Pakist?n, el general David Petraeus, dijo a la red de televisi?n Al Arabya que “EE.UU. apoya la seguridad de Yemen en el contexto de la cooperaci?n militar suministrada por EE.UU. a sus aliados en la regi?n” y “subray? que barcos estadounidenses en las aguas territoriales de Yemen [est?n all?] no s?lo para controlar sino para impedir las filtraciones de armas a los rebeldes houthi.” [4] 
Habr? que recordarlo la pr?xima vez que se utilice el embuste al Qaeda/bin Laden para justificar la expansi?n de la participaci?n militar de EE.UU. en Arabia. 
El Yemen Post del 13 de diciembre escribi? que la oficina houthi de medios “acus? a EE.UU. de participaci?n en la guerra contra los huz?es” y public? fotograf?as de lo que fue identificado como aviones estadounidenses “involucrados en operaciones de bombardeo en la provincia Sa’ada en el norte de Yemen.” 
La fuente estim? que ha habido veinte bombardeos estadounidenses coordinados con vigilancia satelital. [5] 
La prensa occidental nuevamente encabeza la vinculaci?n de los huz?es, cuyos antecedentes religiosos de chiismo zaid? son bastante diferentes de la versi?n iran?, con siniestras maquinaciones imputadas a Teher?n. Ni siquiera funcionarios del gobierno de EE.UU. han pretendido hasta hoy que haya evidencia de que Ir?n apoye, y muchos menos de que arme, a los rebeldes yemen?es. Eso cambiar? si el gui?n se desarrolla seg?n los precedentes, como lo indica el comentario de Petraeus antes mencionado, y Washington se hace eco de la afirmaci?n del gobierno yemen? de que Ir?n est? armando a sus hermanos chi?es en Yemen, tal como lo acusan de hacerlo en el L?bano. 
Yemen se convertir? en el campo de batalla para una guerra por encargo entre EE.UU. y Arabia Saud? – cuyas relaciones de Estado a Estado son de las m?s fuertes y m?s durables de toda la era posterior a la Segunda Guerra Mundial – por una parte e Ir?n por la otra. 
En un editorial de hace cinco d?as Tehran Times acus? de imprudencia a todas las partes en el conflicto yemen? –el gobierno, los rebeldes y Arabia Saud?– y emiti? una advertencia: “La historia proporciona un buen ejemplo. Arabia Saud? financi? grupos extremistas en Afganist?n y todav?a, veinte a?os despu?s de la retirada del ej?rcito sovi?tico del pa?s, las llamas de la guerra en Afganist?n est?n agobiando a los aliados de Arabia Saud?.” 
“Y un escenario semejante est? emergiendo en Yemen.” [6] 
La comparaci?n entre Yemen y Afganist?n alud?a en particular a Riad, en el segundo caso de trabajo en equipo con EE.UU., en la exportaci?n de wahabismo basado en Arabia Saud? para expandir su influencia pol?tica. 
Arabia Saud? intenta impulsar su propia versi?n de extremismo en Yemen como lo hizo anteriormente en Afganist?n y Pakist?n y lo hace actualmente en Iraq. Lejos de que EE.UU. y sus aliados occidentales expresen alguna objeci?n, los saud?es y las otras monarqu?as del Golfo P?rsico estar?n a la vanguardia en lo que se calcula como compras de armas de Occidente por 100.000 millones de d?lares durante los pr?ximos cinco a?os. “El n?cleo de esta org?a de compras de armas ser? indudablemente el paquete de sistemas de armas estadounidenses por 20.000 millones de d?lares durante 10 a?os por los seis Estados del Consejo de Cooperaci?n del Golfo – Arabia Saud?, los E.A.U., Kuwait, Om?n, Qatar y Bahrain.” [7] Arabia Saud? tambi?n est? armada con aviones de guerra brit?nicos y franceses de ?ltima tecnolog?a as? como con sistemas de defensa de misiles de EE.UU. 
Lo que el comentario iran? arriba mencionado advirti? respecto a las “llamas de la guerra” en Afganist?n es perfectamente confirmado por la Evaluaci?n Inicial del Comandante del 30 de agosto de 2009 emitida por el m?ximo comandante militar estadounidense y de la OTAN en Afganist?n, general Stanley McChrystal, y publicada con las modificaciones exigidas por el Pent?gono en el Washington Post del 21 de septiembre. El documento de 66 p?ginas sirvi? de base al anuncio del presidente Barack Obama del 1 de diciembre de que enviar? 33.000 soldados estadounidenses m?s a Afganist?n. 
En su informe, McChrystal declar?: “Los principales grupos insurgentes en orden de su amenaza para la misi?n son: Quetta Shura Taliban (05T), la Red Haqqani (HQN), y Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HiG).” 
Los dos ?ltimos llevan el nombre de sus fundadores y actuales dirigentes, Jalaluddin Haqqanni y Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, los muyahidines preferidos de la Agencia Central de Inteligencia de EE.UU. en los a?os ochenta, cuando el director adjunto de la Agencia (de 1986 a 1989) era Robert Gates, actual secretario de defensa de EE.UU. a cargo de proseguir la guerra en Afganist?n. Y en Yemen. 
En su libro de 1996 From the Shadows, alarde? de que “la CIA tuvo importantes ?xitos en la acci?n clandestina. Tal vez el m?s importante de todos fue Afganist?n, donde la CIA, con su administraci?n, canaliz? miles de millones de d?lares en suministros y armas a los muyahidines…” [8] 
El New York Times divulg? en 2008 los siguientes detalles: 
“En los a?os ochenta, Jalaluddin Haqqani fue desarrollado como un recurso ‘unilateral’ de la CIA y recibi? decenas de miles de d?lares en efectivo por su trabajo en la lucha contra el Ej?rcito Sovi?tico en Afganist?n, seg?n un informe en ‘The Bin Ladens,’ un libro reciente de Steve Coll. En esos d?as, Haqqani ayud? y protegi? a Osama bin Laden, quien estaba formando su propia milicia para combatir a las fuerzas sovi?ticas, escribi? Coll.” [9] Coll es tambi?n el autor del libro de 2001 Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. 
El colega de Haqqani, Hekmatyar, “recibi? millones de d?lares de la CIA a trav?s de la ISI (Inteligencia Inter-Servicios de Pakist?n). Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin recibi? parte del mayor apoyo de Pakist?n y Arabia Saud?, y trabaj? con miles de muyahidines extranjeros que fueron a Afganist?n.” [10] 
En mayo pasado el (en grado sumo) proestadounidense presidente de Pakist?n, Asif Ali Zardari, dijo a la cadena estadounidense NBC news que los talibanes forman “parte de nuestro pasado y de vuestro pasado, y la ISI y la CIA los crearon juntas… (Los talibanes) son (un) monstruo creado por todos nosotros…” [11] 
El 11 de septiembre de 2001 hab?a s?lo tres naciones en el mundo que reconoc?an el r?gimen talib?n en Afganist?n: Pakist?n, Arabia Saud? y los Emiratos ?rabes Unidos. El presidente de EE.UU., George W. Bush, inmediatamente individualiz? para posibles represalias a siete Estados que supuestamente apoyaban el terrorismo: Cuba, Ir?n, Iraq, Libia, Corea del Norte, Sud?n y Siria. S?lo Sud?n, que expuls? a Osama bin Laden en 1996, ten?a alguna conexi?n concebible con al Qaeda. De los diecinueve acusados del secuestro de los aviones del 11 de septiembre, quince proced?an de Arabia Saud?, dos de los Emiratos ?rabes Unidos, uno de Egipto y uno de L?bano. 
Pakist?n y Arabia Saud? siguen siendo aliados pol?ticos y militares altamente valorados de EE.UU. y los Emiratos ?rabes Unidos tienen tropas sirviendo bajo comando de la OTAN en Afganist?n.
Tal vez sea imposible determinar el momento exacto en el cual un sedicente guerrero santo apoyado por EE.UU. –entrenado para perpetrar actos de terrorismo urbano y derribar aviones comerciales– deja de ser un combatiente por la libertad y se convierte en terrorista. Pero una suposici?n segura es que ocurre cuando ya no es ?til para Washington. Un terrorista que sirve los intereses de EE.UU. es un combatiente por la libertad; un combatiente por la libertad que no los sirve es un terrorista. 
Durante decenios el Congreso Nacional Africano de Nelson Mandela y la Organizaci?n para la Liberaci?n de Palestina estuvieron en cabeza de la lista de grupos terroristas del Departamento de Estado de EE.UU. Apenas termin? la Guerra Fr?a Mandela y Arafat (y Gerry Adams de Sinn Fein) fueron invitados a la Casa Blanca. El primero comparti? el Premio Nobel de la Paz en 1993 y el segundo en 1994. 
Si un hipot?tico sedicente yihadista parti? de Arabia Saud? o Egipto en los a?os ochenta hacia Pakist?n para luchar contra el gobierno afgano y su aliado sovi?tico, era un combatiente por la libertad a los ojos de EE.UU. Si luego iba a L?bano era terrorista. A comienzos de los a?os noventa, si llegaba a Bosnia volv?a a ser un combatiente por la libertad, pero si se presentaba en la Franja de Gaza o en Cisjordania era terrorista. En el Norte del C?ucaso ruso era un combatiente por la libertad vuelto a nacer, pero si volvi? a Afganist?n despu?s de 2001 era terrorista. 
Seg?n c?mo sopla el viento en Washington, un separatista baluchi armado en Pakist?n o un cachemir? en India es un combatiente por la libertad o un terrorista. 
Al contrario, en 1998 el enviado especial de EE.UU. a los Balcanes, Robert Gelbard, describi? al Ej?rcito por la Liberaci?n de Kosovo (ELK) que luchaba contra el gobierno de Yugoslavia como organizaci?n terrorista: “Conozco a un terrorista cuando lo veo y estos hombres son terroristas.” [12] 
En el siguiente mes de febrero la secretaria de Estado de EE.UU., Madeleine Albright, llev? a cinco miembros del ELK, incluido su jefe Hashim Thaci, a Rambouillet, Francia para presentar un ultim?tum a Yugoslavia a sabiendas de que ser?a rechazado y llevar?a a la guerra. Al a?o siguiente acompa?? a Thaci a un tour personal del edificio de Naciones Unidas y al Departamento de Estado y lo invit? a la convenci?n presidencial del Partido Dem?crata en Los ?ngeles. 
Este 1 de noviembre, Thaci, ahora primer ministro de un pseudo-Estado reconocido por s?lo 63 de las 192 naciones del mundo, recibi? al ex presidente Bill Clinton de EE.UU. para la ceremonia inaugural de una estatua en honor de los cr?menes de este ?ltimo. Y de su vanidad. 
Washington apoy? a separatistas armados en Eritrea desde mediados de los a?os setenta hasta 1991 en su guerra contra el gobierno et?ope. 
Actualmente EE.UU. arma a Somalia y Djibouti para la guerra contra Eritrea independiente. El Pent?gono tiene su primera base militar permanente en ?frica en Djibouti, donde estaciona a 2.000 soldados y desde donde realiza vigilancia con drones sobre Somalia. Y Yemen. 
En palabras del personaje de Balzac, Vautrin: “«No hay principios, s?lo hay eventos; no hay leyes, s?lo circunstancias.» 
Los yemen?es son los ?ltimos en aprender la ley de la selva del Pent?gono y la Casa Blanca. Junto con Ir?n y Afganist?n, que el especialista en contrainsurgencia Stanley McChrystal utiliz? para perfeccionar sus t?cnicas, Yemen se une a las filas de otras naciones en las que el Pent?gono est? involucrado en ese tipo de guerra, llena de masacres de civiles y otras formas del llamado da?o colateral: Colombia, Mali, Pakist?n, Las Filipinas, Somalia y Uganda.
Notas 
1) BBC News, December 14, 2009
2) Press TV, December 14, 2009
3) Daily Telegraph, December 13, 2009
4) Yemen Post, December 13, 2009
5) Ibid.
6) Tehran Times, December 10, 2009
7) United Press International, August 25, 2009
8) BBC News, December 1, 2008
9) New York Times, September 9, 2008
10) Wikipedia.
11) Press Trust of India, May 11, 2009
12) BBC News, June 28, 1998 
Categories: Uncategorized 
Y?men: La guerre du Pentagone sur la p?ninsule arabique
December 17, 2009 richardrozoff Leave a comment 
Stop NATO
December 16, 2009
Y?men: La guerre du Pentagone sur la p?ninsule arabique (abr?g?e)
Rick Rozoff
Traduction par Andr? Comte
———-
Le Y?men va devenir un champ de bataille pour une guerre par procuration entre les ?tats-Unis et l’Arabie Saoudite – dont les relations d’?tat-?-?tat sont parmi les plus fortes et plus durables de toute la p?riode d’apr?s la 2?me Guerre Mondiale – d’une part et l’Iran d’autre part.
Il est peut-?tre impossible de d?terminer le moment exact o? un guerrier saint autoproclam? et soutenu par les U.S.A – entra?n? ? commettre des actes de terrorisme urbain et ? abattre des avions de ligne civils – cesse d’?tre un freedom fighter, un combattant de la libert? et devient un terroriste. Mais c’est faire une hypoth?se solide que de penser que cela se produit lorsqu’il n’est plus d’aucune utilit? pour Washington. Un terroriste qui sert les int?r?ts am?ricains est un combattant de la libert?; un combattant de la libert? qui ne les sert pas est un terroriste.
Les Y?m?nites sont les derniers ? apprendre la loi de la jungle du Pentagone et la Maison-Blanche. Avec l’Irak et l’Afghanistan que le sp?cialiste de la contrinsurrection Stanley McChrystal a utilis? pour perfectionner ses techniques, le Y?men rejoint les rangs d’autres nations o? le Pentagone est engag? dans cette vari?t? de guerre, lourde de massacres de civils et d’autres formes de ce qu’on appelle des dommages collat?raux: la Colombie, le Mali, le Pakistan, les Philippines, la Somalie et l’Ouganda.
———- 
BBC News a signal? le 14 d?cembre que 70 civils ont ?t? tu?s quand un avion a bombard? un march? dans le village de Bani Maan au nord du Y?men.
Les forces arm?es de la nation ont affirm? la responsabilit? de l’attaque mortelle, mais un site web des rebelles Houthi contre lesquels le bombardement ?tait ostensiblement dirig? a d?clar? “L’avion saoudien a commis un massacre contre les habitants innocents de Bani Maan.” [1]
Le r?gime saoudien est engag? dans le conflit arm? entre les Houthis (?ponyme) et le gouvernement y?m?nite au nom de ce dernier au d?but du mois de novembre et depuis a ?t? accus? de lancer des attaques ? l’int?rieur du Y?men avec des tanks et des avions de guerre. Avant m?me les derniers bombardements un grand nombre de Y?m?nites ont ?t? tu?s et des milliers d?plac?s par les combats. L’Arabie Saoudite a ?galement ?t? accus?e d’utiliser des bombes au phosphore.
En outre, le groupe rebelle appel? Young Believers [Jeunes Croyants], bas? dans la communaut? des Musulmans Shiites du Y?men qui comprend 30% de la population du pays de 23 millions, a affirm? le 14 d?cembre que “Des avions de chasse US ont attaqu? la province de Sa’ada du Y?men” et “Les jets US ont lanc? 28 attaques sur la province du Nord-Ouest de Sa’ada.” [2]
L’?dition du jour pr?c?dent du Daily Telegraph de Grande-Bretagne a donn? des informations sur des discussions avec des officiers de l’arm?e des Etats-Unis, d?clarant “Par peur que le Y?men ne soit en danger de devenir un ?tat en ?chec, l’Am?rique a envoy? maintenant un petit nombre d’?quipes des forces sp?ciales pour am?liorer l’entra?nement de l’arm?e du Y?men en r?action ? la menace.” 
Un responsable non nomm? du Pentagone a ?t? cit? disant “Le Y?men devient une base de r?serve pour les activit?s d’al-Qa?da au Pakistan et en Afghanistan.” [3]
L’?vocation de l’?pouvantail al-Qa?da, cependant, est un leurre. Les rebelles du nord de la nation sont des Shi’ites et non des Sunnites, bien moins que des Sunnites Wahhabites de la vari?t? saoudienne et en tant que tels non seulement ne sont li?es ? aucun groupe de groupes qui puisse ?tre class? comme al-Qa?da, mais au contraire serait pour al-Qa?da une cible probable.
Au service des desseins am?ricains dans la r?gion, la presse britannique et am?ricaine a fait r?f?rence au Y?men en tant que la “patrie ancestrale” de Oussama ben Laden. Ben Laden vient d’une ?minente famille milliardaire d’Arabie Saoudite, bien entendu, mais comme son p?re ?tait n? dans ce qui est maintenant la R?publique du Y?men il y a plus d’un si?cle les m?dias occidentaux exploitent un accident historique insignifiant pour sugg?rer un r?le actif d’Oussama ben Laden dans la nation et pour ?tablir un lien t?nu entre la guerre sud-asiatique d’Afghanistan et du Pakistan et les interventions arm?es saoudienne et am?ricaine dans un conflit civil au Y?men.
En 2002 le Pentagone a d?p?ch? un nombre estim? de 100 soldats, certains des forces sp?ciales des Green Beret [B?rets Verts] au Y?men pour entra?ner l’arm?e du pays. Pour ce cas-l?, survenu deux ans apr?s l’attaque suicide par bombe contre le destroyer de la Navy USS Cole dans le port y?m?nite d’Aden, attribu?e ? et accompagn?s par des attaques de missiles drones contre des dirigeants reconnus d’ al-Qa?da, Washington a justifi? ses actions comme ?tant en repr?sailles pour cet incident ainsi que les attentats de New York et Washington, D.C. de l’ann?e pr?c?dente.
Le contexte actuel est diff?rent et une guerre contre-insurrectionnelle soutenue par les USA au Y?men n’aura rien ? voir avec la lutte contre de pr?tendues menaces d’al-Qa?da, mais sera ?tre en fait partie int?grante de la strat?gie pour d?velopper la guerre afghane dans des cercles concentriques encore plus large englobant l’Asie du Sud et l’Asie centrale, le Caucase et le Golfe Persique, l’Asie du Sud-est et le Golfe d’Aden, la Corne de l’Afrique et la P?ninsule arabique. Le d?part attendu avec impatience du pr?sident George W. Bush peut avoir amen? la fin de la guerre mondiale officielle contre le terrorisme, ? laquelle on se r?f?re maintenant sous le nom d’op?rations d’urgence outre-mer, mais rien n’a chang? ? part le nom. 
Le 13 d?cembre le commandant en chef du Commandement Central du Pentagone charg? des guerres en Afghanistan, en Irak et au Pakistan, le g?n?ral David Petraeus, a dit sur la cha?ne de t?l?vision Al Arabiya que “Les USA soutiennent la s?curit? du Y?men dans le cadre de la coop?ration militaire fournie par l’Am?rique ? ses alli?s dans la r?gion” et “il a soulign? que les navires U.S. dans les eaux territoriales de Y?men [sont l?] non seulement pour contr?ler mais pour faire obstacle aux infiltrations d’armes destin?es aux rebelles Houthi.” [4]
Se rappeler la prochaine fois que le leurre al-Qa?da/bin Laden est utilis? pour justifier l’engagement en pleine expansion de l’arm?e U.S. sur la p?ninsule arabique.
Le Yemen Post du 13 d?cembre a ?crit que le service de m?dias Houthi “a accus? les ?tats-Unis de participer ? la guerre contre les Houthis”et qu’il a publi? des photographies de ce qui a ?t? identifi? comme des avions de guerre US “impliqu?s dans les op?rations de bombardement dans la province de Sa’ada [dans le] Nord du Y?men.”
La source a estim? qu’il y a eu vingt raids de bombardement U.S. coordonn?s avec la surveillance par satellite. [5]
La presse occidentale prend ? nouveau la t?te de l’accusation en reliant les Houthis, dont le contexte religieux du shi’isme de Zaydi est tout ? fait distinct de la version iranienne, aux machinations sinistres imput?es ? T?h?ran. M?me les fonctionnaires du gouvernement am?ricain n’ont ? ce jour reconnu aucune preuve que l’Iran soutient beaucoup moins qu’il n’arme les rebelles y?m?nite. Cela va changer si le script marche selon ce qui pr?c?de tel qu’ indiqu? par le commentaire ci-dessus de Petraeus, et Washington fera loyalement ?cho ? l’affirmation du gouvernement y?m?nite que l’Iran est en train d’armer ses fr?res shiites du Y?men comme il est accus? de le faire au Liban. 
Le Y?men deviendra un champ de bataille pour une guerre par procuration entre les ?tats-Unis et l’Arabie Saoudite – dont les relations d’?tat-?-?tat sont parmi les plus fortes et les plus durables de toute la p?riode d’apr?s la 2?me Guerre Mondiale – d’une part et l’Iran d’autre part.
……………………………… 
1) BBC News, 14 d?cembre 2009
2) Press TV, 14 d?cembre 2009
3) Daily Telegraph, 13 d?cembre 2009
4) Yemen Post, 13 d?cembre 2009
5) Ibid
Categories: Uncategorized 
Yemen: Pentagon’s War On The Arabian Peninsula
December 15, 2009 richardrozoff 1 comment 
Stop NATO
December 15, 2009
Yemen: Pentagon’s War On The Arabian Peninsula
Rick Rozoff
———-
Yemen will become a battleground for a proxy war between the United States and Saudi Arabia – whose state-to-state relations are among the strongest and most durable of the entire post-World War II era – on one hand and Iran on the other.
It is perhaps impossible to determine the exact moment at which a U.S.- supported self-professed holy warrior – trained to perpetrate acts of urban terrorism and to shoot down civilian airliners – ceases to be a freedom fighter and becomes a terrorist. But a safe assumption is that it occurs when he is no longer of use to Washington. A terrorist who serves American interests is a freedom fighter; a freedom fighter who doesn’t is a terrorist.
Yemenis are the latest to learn the Pentagon’s and the White House’s law of the jungle. Along with Iraq and Afghanistan which counterinsurgency specialist Stanley McChrystal used to perfect his techniques, Yemen is joining the ranks of other nations where the Pentagon is engaged in that variety of warfare, fraught with civilian massacres and other forms of so-called collateral damage: Colombia, Mali, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia and Uganda.
———-
BBC News reported on December 14 that 70 civilians were killed when aircraft bombed a market in the village of Bani Maan in northern Yemen.
The nation’s armed forces claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, but a website of the Houthi rebels against whom the bombing was ostensibly directed stated “Saudi aircraft committed a massacre against the innocent residents of Bani Maan.” [1]
The Saudi regime entered the armed conflict between the (eponymous) Houthis and the Yemeni government on behalf of the latter in early November and since has been accused of launching attacks inside Yemen with tanks and warplanes. Even before the latest bombing scores of Yemenis have been killed and thousands displaced by the fighting. Saudi Arabia has also been accused of using phosphorous bombs.
Moreover, the rebel group known as Young Believers, based in the Shi’ite Muslim community of Yemen which comprises 30 percent of the country’s population of 23 million, claimed on December 14 that “US fighter jets have attacked Yemen’s Sa’ada Province” and “US fighter jets have launched 28 attacks on the northwestern province of Sa’ada.” [2]
The previous day’s edition of Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported on discussions with U.S. military officials, stating “Fearful that Yemen is in danger of becoming a failed state, America has now sent a small number of special forces teams to improve training of Yemen’s army in reaction to the threat.” 
One unnamed Pentagon official was quoted as saying “Yemen is becoming a reserve base for al-Qaeda’s activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” [3]
The conjuring up of the al-Qaeda bogey, however, is a decoy. The rebels in the north of the nation are Shi’ites and not Sunnis, much less Wahhabi Sunnis of the Saudi variety, and as such are not only not linked with any group of groups that could be categorized as al-Qaeda, but instead would be a likely target thereof.
In service to American designs in the region, the British and American press lately has been referring to Yemen as the “ancestral homeland” of Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden comes from a prominent billionaire Saudi Arabian family, of course, but as his father had been born in what is now the Republic of Yemen over a century ago the Western media are exploiting an insignificant historical accident to suggest Osama bin Laden’s active role in the nation and to establish a tenuous link between the South Asian war in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Saudi and American armed intervention in a civil conflict in Yemen.
In 2002 the Pentagon dispatched an estimated 100 soldiers, by some accounts Green Beret special forces, to Yemen to train the country’s military. In that instance, coming as it did two years after the suicide bombing attack against the Navy destroyer USS Cole in the southern Yemeni port of Aden, attributed to al-Qaeda, and accompanied by drone missile attacks against identified leaders of the same, Washington justified its actions as retaliation for that incident as well as the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. the year before.
The present context is different and a U.S.-backed counterinsurgency war in Yemen will have nothing to do with combating alleged al-Qaeda threats, but will in fact be an integral part of the strategy to expand the Afghan war into yet wider concentric circles taking in South and Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Persian Gulf, Southeast Asia and the Gulf of Aden, the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The eagerly awaited departure of President George W. Bush may have led to the end of the official global war on terror, now referred to as overseas contingencies operations, but nothing except the name has changed. 
On December 13 the top commander of the Pentagon’s Central Command in charge of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, General David Petraeus, told the Al Arabiya television network that “that U.S supports Yemen’s security in the context of the military cooperation provided by America for its allies in the region” and “stressed that U.S. ships in the territorial waters of Yemen [are there] not only to control but to impede the infiltrations of weapons to Houthi rebels.” [4]
To be recalled the next time the al-Qaeda/bin Laden canard is used to justify expanding U.S. military involvement on the Arabian Peninsula.
The Yemen Post of December 13 wrote that the Houthi media office “accused the U.S. of participating in the war against Houthis” and released photographs of what were identified as U.S. warplanes “involved in bombing operations in Sa’ada province [in] Northern Yemen.”
The source estimated there have been twenty U.S. bombing raids coordinated with satellite surveillance. [5]
The Western press is again leading the charge in linking the Houthis, whose religious background of Zaydi Shi’ism is quite distinct from the Iranian version, to sinister machinations imputed to Tehran. Even U.S. government officials have to date acknowledged no evidence that Iran is supporting much less arming the Yemeni rebels. That will change if the script goes according to precedent as is indicated by Petraeus’s comment above, and Washington will dutifully echo the Yemeni government’s claim that Iran is arming its Shi’ia brethren in Yemen as it is accused of doing in Lebanon.
Yemen will become a battleground for a proxy war between the United States and Saudi Arabia – whose state-to-state relations are among the strongest and most durable of the entire post-World War II era – on one hand and Iran on the other.
In an editorial of five days ago the Tehran Times accused all parties to the Yemeni conflict – the government, the rebels and Saudi Arabia – of recklessness and issued a warning: “History provides a good example. Saudi Arabia funded extremist groups in Afghanistan and still, two decades since the withdrawal of the Soviet army from the country, the flames of war in Afghanistan are overwhelming the allies of Saudi Arabia. 
“And a similar scenario is emerging in Yemen.” [6]
The comparison between Yemen and Afghanistan alluded in particular to Riyadh, in the second case hand-in-glove with the United States, exporting Saudi-based Wahhabism to expand its political influence.
Saudi Arabia is attempting to promote its own version of extremism in Yemen as it did earlier in Afghanistan and Pakistan and is currently doing in Iraq. Far from the U.S. and its Western allies expressing any objection, the Saudis and their fellow Persian Gulf monarchies will be in the forefront of what is estimated to be $100 billion worth of Middle East arms purchases from the West over the next five years. “The core of this arms-buying spree will undoubtedly be the $20 billion U.S. package of weapons systems over 10 years for the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain.” [7] Saudi Arabia is also armed with state-of-the-art British and French warplanes as well as U.S. missile defense systems.
What the earlier cited Iranian commentary warned about regarding “the flames of war” in Afghanistan is perfectly confirmed by the Commander’s Initial Assessment of August 30, 2009 issued by top American and NATO military commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal and published by the Washington Post on September 21 with the redactions demanded by the Pentagon. The 66-page document served as the blueprint for President Barack Obama’s December 1 announcement that 33,000 more American troops are headed to Afghanistan.
In the report McChrystal stated, “The major insurgent groups in order of their threat to the mission are: the Quetta Shura Taliban (05T), the Haqqani Network (HQN), and the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HiG).”
The last two are named after their founders and current leaders, Jalaluddin Haqqanni and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Mujahideen darlings of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the 1980s when the Agency’s deputy director (from 1986-1989) was Robert Gates, now U.S. Secretary of Defense in charge of prosecuting the war in Afghanistan. And in Yemen.
In his 1996 book From the Shadows, Gates boasted that “CIA had important successes in covert action. Perhaps the most consequential of all was Afghanistan where CIA, with its management, funnelled billions of dollars in supplies and weapons to the mujahideen….” [8]
The New York Times in 2008 divulged these details:
“In the 1980s, Jalaluddin Haqqani was cultivated as a ‘unilateral’ asset of the CIA and received tens of thousands of dollars in cash for his work in fighting the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, according to an account in ‘The Bin Ladens,’ a recent book by Steve Coll. At that time, Haqqani helped and protected Osama bin Laden, who was building his own militia to fight the Soviet forces, Coll wrote.” [9] Coll is also the author of the 2001 volume Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.
Haqqani’s colleague Hekmatyar “received millions of dollars from the CIA through the ISI [Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence]. Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin received some of the strongest support from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and worked with thousands of foreign mujahideen who came to Afghanistan.” [10] 
This past May the (superlatively) pro-American president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, told the American NBC news network that Taliban is “part of our past and your past, and the ISI and CIA created them together….It (the Taliban) was (a) monster created by all of us….” [11]
On September 11, 2001 there were only three nations in the world that recognized Taliban rule in Afghanistan: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. U.S. President George W. Bush immediately afterward singled out seven so-called states supporting terrorism for potential retaliation: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. Only Sudan, which expelled Osama bin Laden in 1996, had any conceivable connections to al-Qaeda. Of the nineteen accused September 11 airline hijackers, fifteen were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt and one from Lebanon.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia remain highly-valued American political and military allies and the United Arab Emirates has troops serving under NATO command in Afghanistan.
It is perhaps impossible to determine the exact moment at which a U.S.-supported self-professed holy warrior – trained to perpetrate acts of urban terrorism and to shoot down civilian airliners – ceases to be a freedom fighter and becomes a terrorist. But a safe assumption is that it occurs when he is no longer of use to Washington. A terrorist who serves American interests is a freedom fighter; a freedom fighter who doesn’t is a terrorist.
For decades the African National Congress of Nelson Mandela and the Palestine Liberation Organization of Yasser Arafat were at the top of the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist groups. No sooner had the Cold War ended than both Mandela and Arafat (and Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams) were invited to the White House. The first shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and the second in 1994. 
If a hypothetical self-styled jihadist left Saudi Arabia or Egypt in the 1980s for Pakistan to fight against the Afghan government and its Soviet ally, he was a freedom fighter in the U.S.’s eyes. If he then went to Lebanon he was a terrorist. In the early 1990s if he arrived in Bosnia he was a freedom fighter again, but if he showed up in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank a terrorist. In the Russian North Caucasus he was a reborn freedom fighter, but if he returned to Afghanistan after 2001 a terrorist.
Depending on how the wind is blowing from Foggy Bottom, an armed Baloch separatist in Pakistan or a Kashmiri one in India is either a freedom fighter or a terrorist.
Contrariwise, in 1998 U.S. special envoy to the Balkans Robert Gelbard described the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fighting the government of Yugoslavia as a terrorist organization: “I know a terrorist when I see one and these men are terrorists.” [12] 
The following February U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright brought five members of the KLA, including its chief Hashim Thaci, to Rambouillet, France to offer an ultimatum to Yugoslavia that she knew would be rejected and lead to war. The next year she escorted Thaci on a personal tour of the United Nations Headquarters and the State Department and invited him as a guest to the Democratic Party presidential nominating convention in Los Angeles.
This November 1st Thaci, now prime minister of a pseudo-state only recognized by 63 of the world’s 192 nations, hosted former U.S. President Bill Clinton for the unveiling of a statue honoring the latter’s crimes. And vanity.
Washington supported armed separatists in Eritrea from the mid-1970s until 1991 in their war against the Ethiopian government.
Currently the U.S. is arming Somalia and Djibouti for war against independent Eritrea. The Pentagon has its first permanent military base in Africa in Djibouti, where it stations 2,000 troops and from where it conducts drone surveillance over Somalia. And Yemen.
In the words of Balzac’s character Vautrin, “There are no such things as principles, there are only events; there are no laws, there are only circumstances….”
Yemenis are the latest to learn the Pentagon’s and the White House’s law of the jungle. Along with Iraq and Afghanistan which counterinsurgency specialist Stanley McChrystal used to perfect his techniques, Yemen is joining the ranks of other nations where the U.S. military is engaged in that variety of warfare, fraught with civilian massacres and other forms of so-called collateral damage: Colombia, Mali, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia and Uganda. 
1) BBC News, December 14, 2009
2) Press TV, December 14, 2009
3) Daily Telegraph, December 13, 2009
4) Yemen Post, December 13, 2009
5) Ibid
6) Tehran Times, December 10, 2009
7) United Press International, August 25, 2009
8) BBC News, December 1, 2008
9) New York Times, September 9, 2008
10) Wikipedia
11) Press Trust of India, May 11, 2009
12) BBC News, June 28, 1998
Categories: Uncategorized 
Il legame transatlantico segreto della NATO: Armi nucleari in Europa
December 12, 2009 richardrozoff Leave a comment 
Stop NATO
December 12, 2009
ARMI NUCLEARI IN EUROPA
Il legame transatlantico segreto della NATO
di Rick Rozoff
Tradotto per Voci Dalla Strada da VANESA
http://www.vocidallastrada.com/2009/12/armi-nucleari-in-europa.html
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“Vent’anni dopo la caduta del Muro di Berlino, piloti olandese, belga, italiani e tedeschi continuano ad essere pronti per partecipare ad una guerra nucleare” 
“Le forze nucleari con base in Europa e impegnate con la NATO forniscono un collegamento essenziale politico e militare tra i membri europei e americani dell’Alleanza. L’ Alleanza quindi manterr? forze nucleari adeguate in Europa”. 
“Anche se tecnicamente sono propriet? degli USA, le bombe nucleari conservate nelle basi della NATO sono destinate ad essere lanciate da aerei del paese ospitante”. 
“Il dipartimento della Difesa, in coordinazione con il Dipartimento di Stato, dovrebbe coinvolgere gli alleati della NATO nella rivalutazione e conferma del ruolo delle armi nucleari nella strategia politica dell’Alleanza per il futuro”.
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L’Italia ? capace di lanciare un attacco termonucleare? Potrebbero i belga e olandesi lanciare bombe ad idrogeno su obiettivi nemici?….Non ? possibile che la forza aerea tedesca si stia allenando per lanciare bombe 13 volte pi? potenti di quella che distrusse Hiroshima, o forse si?
Quanto detto precedentemente deriva dal paragrafo di apertura di un articolo apparso nell’edizione on-line del 2 dicembre del Time magazine online, intitolato “Cosa fare riguardo le bombe nucleari segrete in Europa”.
In risposta a queste domande retoriche assume un tono molto serio che corrisponde alla dichiarazione: “E’ lo sporco segreto dell’ Europa la lista dei paesi con capacit? nucleare va oltre quelli che- Gran Bretagna e Francia- hanno costruito le proprie armi. Ci sono bombe nucleari nelle basi delle forze aeree italiane, belga, tedesche e olandesi- e ci sono aerei capaci di lanciarle”.
L’autore di questo articolo, Eben Harrell, che ha scritto un pezzo altrettanto rivelatore per lo stesso sito di notizie, nel giugno del 2008, cita la Federation of American Scientists affermando che vi sono circa 200 bombe termonucleari di gravit? B61 statunitensi parcheggiate nei quattro Stati membri della NATO prima citati. Una quinta nazione della NATO, che alberga ordigni nucleari, la Turchia, non viene menzionata nell’articolo. Nella notizia precedente del Times, l’autore Harrell scrisse che “Gli Stati Uniti detengono circa 350 bombe termonucleari in sei paesi della NATO (1). Ci sono tre varianti della B61, “fino a 10 (o 13) volte pi? potenti della bomba lanciata su Hiroshima” (2)- B61-3s, B61-4s e B61-10s- che si trovano in otto basi degli Stati dell’ Alleanza.
L’autore ricord? ai lettori del giornale che “nell’ambito di un accordo della NATO durante la Guerra Fredda, le bombe, che sono teoricamente di propriet? degli USA, possono essere trasferite al controllo aereo militare della nazione ospitante in tempi di conflitto. Vent’anni dopo la caduta del muro, i piloti olandesi, belga, italiani e tedeschi continuano ad essere pronti per partecipare ad una guerra nucleare (3).
La B61 ? la principale arma ad idrogeno del Pentagono, una “bomba di peso leggero (che pu?) essere lanciata da…Air Force, Navy e della NATO ad altitudini molto elevate e velocit? superiori a Mach 2.”
“Si possono anche lanciare ad alte velocit?, da altezze di soli 15 metri. Fino a 22 tipi di aerei diversi possono trasportare esternamente o internamente la B61. Quest’arma si pu? lanciare in caduta libera o ritardata dal paracadute; si pu? detonare esplosione in aria o in terra” (4).
Gli aerei capaci di trasportare e usare la bomba includono gli aerei stealth di nuova generazione come il bombardiere B-1 ed il F-35 Lightning II (Joint Strike Fighter multirol), capace di penetrare le difese aeree e di lanciare sia carichi convenzionali che nucleari.
Il programma Prompt Global Strike del Pentagono che “potrebbe includere nuove generazioni di aerei e armamenti cinque volte pi? veloci di qualsiasi cosa che si trovi ora nell’arsenale statunitense”, incluso il “missile crociera ipersonico X-51, disegnato per giungere al Mach 5- circa 1.600 metri al secondo (5). Si potrebbe anche configurare per uso in Europa, dato che gli USA possiedono missili crociera con ordigni nucleari per il dispiegamento di aerei e navi. Ma gli aerei da guerra destinati a trasportare armi nucleari statunitensi in Europa sono quelli dei loro alleati della NATO, incluso i tornado tedeschi, variet? di quelli che si sono usati nella guerra aerea della NATO contro la Iugoslavia nel 1999 e che sono quelli che attualmente si usano in Afghanistan.
Si presume che ci siano 130 ordigni nucleari degli Stati Uniti, a Ramstein e 20 nella base aerea Buechel in Germania e 20 nella base aerea Kleine Brogle in Belgio. Inoltre, ci sono documenti su decine di altre in Italia (Aviano e Ghedi) e ancora di pi?, il maggior contingente di armi nucleari statunitensi fuori dagli USA, ? in Turchia, nella base aerea Incirlik (6).
Gli ordigni nucleari non sono solo stazionati in nazioni della NATO ma lo fanno in modo esplicito nel quadro di una politica di sessant’anni dell’Alleanza, in realt? una pietra angolare importante della NATO. Un articolo di questa serie scritto prima del summit del sessantesimo anniversario del blocco in Francia e Germania lo scorso aprile, “NATO’s Sixty Year Legacy: Threat of Nuclear War in Europe”(7), ha esaminato l’inseparabile vincolo tra la fondazione della NATO nel 1949 e il dispiegamento di armi nucleari e dei sistemi di lanci degli USA in Europa. Uno degli obiettivi principali della fondazione dell’ Alleanza ? stato precisamente che si permettesse la collocazione e l’uso di armi nucleari statunitensi nel continente.
Sette mesi dopo la creazione del blocco, la Dottrina Di Difesa della NATO del novembre 1949, specific? che si assicurasse “la capacit? di effettuare bombardamenti strategici tra cui la pronta consegna della bomba atomica. Questo ? in primo luogo una responsabilit? americana assistita possibile da altre nazioni”(8).
L’attuale Manuale della NATO contiene una sezione intitolata Forze Nucleari della NATO nel Nuovo Contesto di Sicurezza che contiene il seguente passaggio: 
“Durante la Guerra Fredda, le forze nucleari della NATO hanno avuto un ruolo centrale nella strategia di reazione flessibile dell’Alleanza….Le forze nucleari erano integrate nell’insieme della struttura delle forze della NATO e l’Alleanza manteneva una variet? di obiettivi, incluso quelli che si potevano realizzare a breve termine. Questo obiettivo richiedeva alti livelli di preparazione e di posizionamenti di allerta di rapida azione per ruoli importanti delle forze nucleari della NATO”(9).
In poco tempo il dispiegamento ed il preteso uso di armi nucleari degli USA formarono parte di una strategia di dissuasione militare. L’antica Unione Sovietica ? stata ritratta come se avesse una superiorit? in armi convenzionali in Europa e la dottrina degli USA e della NATO prevedeva l’uso di bombe nucleari. Queste si trovavano in vari Stati della NATO come parte di quello che si chiam? un accordo di “ripartizione nucleare” o di “ripartizione del carico nucleare”: Anche se le bombe presenti in Europa erano statunitensi ed erano lontane dal controllo del Pentagono, i piani di guerra prevedevano che si caricassero sui bombardieri delle altre nazioni della NATO per essere usate contro l’Unione Sovietica e i suoi alleati (non nucleari) europei orientali. La stessa URSS, a tal proposito, non prov? con successo la sua prima bomba atomica fino a 4 mesi dopo la formazione della NATO.
Con la dissoluzione del Patto di Varsavia, formato 6 anni dopo la NATO e come reazione all’inclusione della Repubblica Federale tedesca nel blocco (e l’invio da parte degli Stati Uniti di armi nucleari a questa nazione), e della stessa Unione Sovietica nel 1991, il Pentagono ritir? la maggior parte dei 7000 ordigni nucleari che aveva in Europa ma continua a mantenere centinaia di bombe nucleari tattiche.
Nel summit del cinquantesimo anniversario della NATO nel 1999 a Washington D.C, mentre il blocco realizzava la sua prima guerra, la campagna di bombardamento di 78 giorni contro la Jugoslavia, si espandeva per incorporare tre vecchi membri del Patto di Varsavia (la Repubblica Ceca, Ungheria e Polonia), ha anche approvato il nuovo Concetto Strategico ancora operativo che in parte dichiara: 
“La suprema garanzia della sicurezza degli Alleati ? data dalle forze nucleari strategiche dell’ Alleanza, particolarmente quella degli Stati Uniti; le forze nucleari indipendenti del Regno Unito e della Francia, che hanno un ruolo deterrenteente proprio, contribuiscono alla dissuasione generale e alla sicurezza degli alleati”.
“Un atteggiamento nucleare verosimile dell’ Alleanza e la dimostrazione di solidariet? della Alleanza….continuano a richiedere un’ampia partecipazione degli Alleati Europei coinvolti nella pianificazione della difesa collettiva in ruoli nucleari, nell’installazione in tempi di pace di forze nucleari nei loro territori e nel fare accordi di comando, controllo e consultazione. Le forze nucleari con base in Europa e impegnate con la NATO forniscono un vincolo politico e militare essenziale tra i membri europei e nordamericani dell’Alleanza. Per questo l’Alleanza manterr? le forze nucleari adeguate in tutta Europa”(10).
Il rapporto del Times del 2008 dice che la politica attuale ? la seguente: 
“Un accordo di “ripartizione di cariche” che ? stato parte del centro della politica militare della NATO fin dal suo inizio”.
“Anche se tecnicamente sono propriet? degli USA, le bombe nucleari conservate nelle basi della NATO sono destinate ad essere lanciate da aerei da parte del paese ospitante”(11).
Si ? fatto riferito anche all’ Air Force Blue Ribbon Review of Nuclear Weapons Policies and Procedures pubblicato a febbraio 2008 il quale “raccomanda che le risorse nucleari statunitensi in Europa si consolidino, che gli analisti interpretino come una raccomandazione spostare le bombe a basi NATO sotto “ali statunitensi”, volendo dire base degli USA in Europa”(12).
Tutti e due gli articoli di Eben Harrell, dell’anno scorso e di questo mese, sottolineano che la collocazione di testate nucleari nel territorio delle nazioni no nucleari- e il Belgio e la Germania, Italia, Olanda e Turcia sono nazioni non nucleari- costituisce una grande violazione del Trattato di Non Proliferazione Nucleare (TNP), i cui primi due articoli dichiarano, rispettivamente: 
Ognuno degli Stati di armi nucleari Parte del Trattato, si prende la responsabilit? di non trasferire a nessun paese le armi nucleari o altri strumenti esplosivi o controllare tali armi o esplosivi direttamente o indirettamente; e non aiutare in nessun modo, stimolare o indurre nessuno Stato non nucleare a costruire o acquistare armi nucleari o altri strumenti esplosivi o controllare tali armi o strumenti esplosivi.
Ogni Stato carente di armi nucleari, Parte del Trattato, si prende la responsabilit? di non ricevere il trasferimento da nessun cedente delle armi nucleari o altri strumenti esplosivi o controllare tali armi o esplosivi in modo diretto o indiretto; di non produrre o acquistare armi nucleari o altri strumenti nucleari; e non cercare o ricevere nessuna assistenza nella costruzione di armi nucleari o altri strumenti nucleari esplosivi(13).
Dopo, l’articolo del Times del 2 dicembre, segnala la continua presenza di testate nucleari degli USA in Europa che “? pi? di un anacronismo o rarit? storica. Esse (le armi) costituiscono una violazione dello spirito del Trattato di Non Proliferazione Nucleare”.
“Poich? ‘la ripartizione del carico nucleare’, come si chiama la dispersione di B61 in Europa si ? stabilita prima che il TNP entrasse in vigore, ? tecnicamente legale. Ma come firmatari del TNP i quattro paesi e gli USA si sono impegnati a “non ricevere trasferimento… di armi nucleari o controllare tali armi in modo diretto o indiretto”. Questo, certamente, ? precisamente quello che rappresenta il vecchio accordo della NATO (14).
L’autore ha parlato anche della relazione del Secretary of Defense Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Management, presieduta dall’ex segretario della difesa USA, James Schlesinger, Fase I (15) pubblicata a settembre e la Fase II (16) a dicembre 2008. La seconda parte del dossier contiene una sezione chiamata: Dissuasione: il caso speciale della NATO, in cui si afferma: 
“L’Organizzazione del Trattato Atlantico Del Nord (NATO) rappresenta un caso speciale di dissuasione, sia per la storia che per la presenza di armi nucleari….La presenza di armi nucleari degli USA continua ad essere un pilastro dell’unit? della NATO. Il dispiegamento delle armi nucleari in Europa non ? un argomento di Servizio o di comando regionale combattente- ? un argomento dell’Alleanza. Mentre i membri della NATO si basano su armi nucleari degli USA per la dissuasione- e mentre mantengono i propri aerei di doppia capacit? come parte di questa dissuasione- non si dovr? intraprendere nessuna azione per rimuoverli senza un accurato processo di consultazione e delibera.
“Il Dipartimento della Difesa, in coordinamento con il Dipartimento di Stato deve impegnarsi controparti adeguate tra gli alleati della NATO nella rivalutazione e la conferma del ruolo delle armi nucleari politica e la strategia per il futuro dell’Alleanza.
“Il Dipartimento di Difesa deve assicurare che l’ F-35 di doppia capacit? rimane entro il termine stabilito”. Pi? ritardi potrebbero portare a crescenti livelli di rischio politico e strategico e alla riduzione delle opzioni strategiche degli USA e l’Alleanza.
L’ F-35 ? il Joint Strike Fighter, aereo da combattimento multiruolo, del quale il suo costruttore Lobkheed Martin dice che “fornisce agli USA e ai governi alleati un aereo da combattimento abbordabile, furtivo, di 5° generazione per il XXI secolo”(17).
Lontano dalla Guerra Fredda ha messo in evidenza l’eliminazione di una catastrofe nucleare in Europa, sotto vari aspetti le cose sono adesso molto pi? precarie. L’espansione della NATO durante l’ultimo decennio la ha portato adesso alle frontiere russe. Cinque membri pieni (Estonia, Lettonia, Lituania, Norvegia e Polonia) e molti altri partner dell’Associazione per la Pace (Azerbaiyan, Finlandia, Georgia, Kazajstan e Ucraina) sono direttamente adiacente al territorio russo e per cinque anni aerei da combattimento della NATO hanno realizzato pattuglie aeree sulla regione del Mar Baltico, a tre minuti di volo da San Pietroburgo (18).
Se il lancio, oltre 10 anni fa del primo immotivato attacco armato contro una nazione europea dal tempo delle guerre di Hitler nel 1939-1941 e l’attuale guerra- la pi? lunga e su maggior scala nel Sud dell’Asia, non sono stati motivi sufficienti per esigere l’abolizione dell’unico blocco militare al mondo, la NATO globale, l’insistenza dell’Alleanza nel suo diritto di parcheggiare-e usare-armi nucleari in Europa ? certamente motivo sufficiente per relegarla ai tenebrosi giorni della Guerra Fredda e all’oblio.
Note
1) Time,19 Giugno 2008
2) Ibid
3) Time, 2 Dicembre 2009 http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1943799,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
4) Global Security http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b61.htm
5) Popular Mechanics, January 2007
6) Turkish Daily News, June 30, 2008
7) NATO’s Sixty Year Legacy: Threat Of Nuclear War In Europe Stop NATO, March 31, 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/natos-sixty-year-legacy-threat-of-nuclear-war-in-europe
8) www.nato.int/docu/stratdoc/eng/intro.pdf
9) http://www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2001/hb0206.htm
10) NATO, 24 Aprile 1999 http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_27433.htm
11) Time, 19 Giugno 2008
12) Ibid
13) http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/npttreaty.html
14) Time, 2 dicembre 2009
15) http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/Phase_I_Report_Sept_10.pdf
16) www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/PhaseIIReportFinal.pdf
17) Lockheed Martin http://www.lockheedmartin.com/products/f35
18) Baltic Sea: Flash Point For NATO-Russia Conflict Stop NATO, 27 Febbraio 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/baltic-sea-flash-point-for-nato-russia-conflict Scandinavia And The Baltic Sea: NATO’s War Plans For The High North Stop NATO, 14 Giugno 2009 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/scandinavia-and-the-baltic-sea-natos-war-plans-for-the-high-north
Categories: Uncategorized 
Velk? hra: USA, NATO a v?lka v Afgh?nist?nu
December 11, 2009 richardrozoff Leave a comment 
Stop NATO
December 11, 2009
Velk? hra: USA, NATO a v?lka v Afgh?nist?nu
Pades?t nebo v?ce zem? na jedin?m boji?ti
Rick Rozoff
P?eklad z Zv?davec
http://zvedavec.org/komentare/2009/12/3425-velka-hra-usa-nato-a-valka-v-afghanistanu.htm
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USA (a Brit?nie) za?aly bombardovat afgh?nsk? hlavn? m?sto K?bul 7. ??jna 2001, k?i?uj?c?mi raketami Tomahawk odpalovan?mi z v?le?n?ch lod? a ponorek a bombami shazovan?mi z letadel, a kr?tce pot? americk? zvl??tn? jednotky za?aly s pozemn?mi operacemi, ?kolem, kter? od t? doby prov?d?ly pravideln? arm?dn? jednotky a jednotky n?mo?n? p?choty. Bombardov?n? a pozemn? bojov? operace pokra?uj? i o v?ce ne? osm let pozd?ji, a oboj? bude v brzk? dob? zes?leno na rekordn? ?rove?.
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Sm??en? s?ly USA a NATO budou p?edstavovat ohromn? po?et jednotek, v?ce ne? 150,000 voj?k?. Pro srovn?n?, v z??? tohoto roku bylo v Ir?ku p?ibli?n? 120,000 americk?ch voj?k? a hrstka „person?lu“ z jin?ch zem?, p?i?azen?ho do v?cvikov? mise – Ir?k NATO,v r?mci kter? tam jsou.
„Ministr Gates ?ekl jasn?, ?e konflikty, ve kter?ch se nach?z?me, by m?ly b?t v sam?m pop?ed? na?? agendy. Chce zajistit, ?e se nevzd?me na?ich sou?asn?ch mo?nost?, proto?e mohou b?t pot?ebn? pro n?jak? nezn?m? budouc? konflikty. Chce zajistit, ?e Pentagon bude skute?n? na v?le?n? stezce… Poprv? za des?tky let se hv?zdy ekonomiky a politiky sjednotily za z?kladn? renovac? toho, jak bude Pentagon pracovat.“
Afgh?nist?n: Historick? precedenty a budouc? p??pady
Posledn?ch deset let si ob?an? Spojen?ch st?t? a dal??ch z?padn?ch zem?, a bohu?el v?t?iny sv?ta, p?ivykli, ?e se Washington a jeho vojen?t? spojenci v Evrop? a ti, kte?? jsou ur?eni jako ozbrojen? vn?j?? z?kladna na periferii „euro-atlantick?ho spole?enstv?“, zapojuj? do ozbrojen?ch agres? na cel?m sv?t?.
V?lky proti Jugosl?vii, Afgh?nist?nu a Ir?ku a vojensk? operace o n?zk?m profilu a z?stupn? kampan? v tak r?zn?ch zem?ch, jako Kolumbie, Jemen, Filip?ny, Pob?e?? slonoviny, Som?lsku, ?adu, St?edoafrick? republice, Ji?n? Ossetii a kdekoliv jinde, se staly nezpochybniteln?m v?sadn?m pr?vem USA a jejich partner? z NATO. A to natolik, ?e mnoz? zapomn?li br?t v ?vahu, jak se pohl??? nebo m??e pohl??et na srovnateln? akce, pokud by se o n? pokusily nez?padn? zem?.
P?ed t?iceti lety, 24. Prosince, vstoupily do Afgh?nist?nu prvn? sov?tsk? jednotky, aby pomohly vl?d? sousedn? zem? v boji proti ozbrojen?mu povst?n? se z?kladnou v P?kist?nu a tajn? (pozd?ji celkem otev?en?) podporovan?ho Spojen?mi st?ty.
S bl???c?m se koncem roku 1979 a pozd?ji vzrostla s?la sov?tsk?ch jednotek asi na 50,000 voj?k?.
Velk? hra
V t?to souvislosti stoj? za zm?nku, ?e v r. 1839 provedla do Afgh?nist?nu invazi Brit?nie, s 21,000 vlastn?ch voj?k? a voj?k? z indick?ch koloni?ln?ch jednotek, a v r. 1878 tam m?la dvojn?sobn? po?et jednotek, aby ?elily rusk?mu vlivu v zemi v r?mci toho, co za?alo b?t naz?v?no Velk? hra.
23. ledna 1980 americk? prezident James Earl (Jimmy) Carter ve sv? zpr?v? o stavu Unie uvedl, ?e „dopady sov?tsk? invaze do Afgh?nist?nu by mohly p?edstavovat nejz?va?n?j?? hrozbu pro m?r po druh? sv?tov? v?lce“.
Kdy? Sov?tsk? svaz za?al ze zem? sv? jednotky stahovat – prvn? polovinu od 15. kv?tna do 16. srpna 1988 a druhou od 15. listopadu 1988 do 15. ?nora 1989 – ?inil jejich nejvy??? po?et n?co m?lo p?es 100,000 mu??.
1. prosince 2009 americk? prezident Barack Obama ozn?mil, ?e do Afgh?nist?nu pos?l? dal??ch 30,000 voj?k?, kte?? se p?ipoj? k tam ji? p??tomn?m 68,000, a o dva dny pozd?ji „ministr obrany Robert Gates ?ekl kongresu… ?e po?et dodate?n?ch jednotek odch?zej?c?ch do Afgh?nist?nu vzroste z 30,000 nejm?n? na 33,000, kdy? se do toho zapo??taj? i podp?rn? jednotky“. (1)
To znamen? v?ce ne? 100,000 mu??. Spolu se soukrom?mi a bezpe?nostn?mi kontraktory je tento po?et je?t? vy???.
Sov?tsk? jednotky byly v Afgh?nist?nu n?co m?lo p?es dev?t let. Americk? jednotky jsou nyn? v t?to zemi zapojeny do dev?t? sez?ny bojov?ch operac?, a za m?n? ne? ?ty?i t?dny za?nou sv?j des?t? kalend??n? rok tamn? v?lky.
25. listopadu mluv?? B?l?ho domu Robert Gibbs ujistil ob?any t?to zem?, ?e „se v Afgh?nist?nu nach?z?me v dev?t?m roce na?eho ?sil?. Nechyst?me se tam b?t dal??ch osm nebo dev?t let.“ (2) D?sledkem je, ?e USA mohou v?st v Afgh?nist?nu v?lku, kter? by mohla trvat a? do r. 2017. ?estn?ct let.
Nejdel?? v?lkou v americk? historii p?ed touto sou?asnou byla v?lka ve Vietnamu. Ameri?t? vojen?t? poradci byli v t?to zemi p??tomni od konce 50. let a tajn? operace byly prov?d?ny od za??tku 60. let, ale teprve rok po zinscenovan?m incidentu v Tonkinsk?m z?livu – v r. 1965 – za?al Pentagon s velk?mi bojov?mi operacemi na jihu a s pravideln?mi bombardovac?mi ?toky na severu. Posledn? americk? bojov? jednotka opustila Ji?n? Vietnam v r. 1972, o sedm let pozd?ji.
USA (a Brit?nie) za?aly bombardovat afgh?nsk? hlavn? m?sto K?bul 7. ??jna 2001, k?i?uj?c?mi raketami Tomahawk odpalovan?mi z v?le?n?ch lod? a ponorek a bombami shazovan?mi z letadel, a kr?tce pot? americk? zvl??tn? jednotky za?aly s pozemn?mi operacemi, ?kolem, kter? od t? doby prov?d?ly pravideln? arm?dn? jednotky a jednotky n?mo?n? p?choty. Bombardov?n? a pozemn? bojov? operace pokra?uj? i o v?ce ne? osm let pozd?ji, a oboj? bude v brzk? dob? zes?leno na rekordn? ?rove?.
Od konce tohoto l?ta USA a jejich spojenci z NATO za?aly s pravideln?mi ?toky st?elami z bezpilotn?ch letoun? a s ?toky vrtuln?ky uvnit? P?kist?nu. Pokud by se o n?co takov?ho pokusili p?ed t?iceti lety sov?ti – kdy? byly ohro?eny jejich vlastn? hranice – reakce Washingtonu by mo?n? spustila t?et? sv?tovou v?lku.
SSSR nenasadil v Afgh?nist?nu v 80. letech jednotky z ??dn? ze sv?ch ?lensk?ch zem? Var?avsk? smlouvy. Historickou ironi?, kter? si ??d? ?ir??ho koment??e, ne? se j? dostalo – ??dn?ho – je, ?e ka?d? z t?chto zem? m? nyn? jednotky slou??c? pod NATO a zab?jej?c? a um?raj?c? na afgh?nsk?m boji?ti: a to Bulharsko, ?esk? republika, Ma?arsko, Polsko, Rumunsko, Slovensko a b?val? N?meck? demokratick? republika (zahrnut? do sjednocen? Spolkov? republiky, kter? tam m? t?m?? 4,500 voj?k?).
Pat?? mezi jednotky z t?m?? 50 zem?, kter? slou??, nebo brzy slou?it budou, pod velen?m NATO na afgh?nsko-p?kist?nsk? v?le?n? front?, kam spadaj? n?sleduj?c? zem? aliance a n?kolik zem? z jej?ch partnersk?ch program?:
?lenov? NATO:
Alb?nie
Belgie
Brit?nie
Bulharsko
Kanada
Chorvatsko
?esk? republika
D?nsko
Estonsko
Francie
N?mecko
?ecko
Ma?arsko
Island
It?lie
Loty?sko
Litva
Lucembursko
Holandsko
Norsko
Polsko
Portugalsko
Rumunsko
Slovensko
Slovinsko
?pan?lsko
Turecko
Spojen? st?ty (35,000 mu??, a stejn? po?et je na cest?)
Partnerstv? za m?r/Koncil euroatlantick?ho partnerstv? (EAPC):
Arm?nie
Rakousko
?zerb?jd??n
Bosna
Finsko
Gruzie
Irsko
Makedonie
?ern? Hora
?v?dsko
?v?carsko (vloni se st?hlo)
Ukrajina
Kontaktn? zem?:
Austr?lie
Japonsko (n?mo?n? s?ly)
Nov? Z?land
Ji?n? Korea
Jadransk? charta (p?ekr?v? se s Partnerstv?m za m?r):
Alb?nie
Bosna
Chorvatsko
Makedonie
?ern? Hora
Istanbulsk? iniciativa spolupr?ce:
Spojen? arabsk? emir?ty
Trilater?ln? vojensk? komise Afgh?nist?n-P?kist?n-NATO:
Afgh?nist?n
P?kist?n 
R?zn?:
Kolumbie
Mongolsko
Singapur 
V??e uveden? seznam obsahuje sedm z patn?cti b?val?ch republik Sov?tsk?ho svazu (dal?? v?voj stoj? za zamy?len?), a d?le sem pak pat?? Mold?vie po leto?n? „Twitterov? revoluci“ a Kazachst?n, kde v z??? americk? velvyslanec tla?il vl?du k poskytnut? jednotek, a kandid?ti na posl?n? jednotek v r?mci z?vazk? plynouc?ch z Partnerstv? za m?r. (Ob? zem? ji? d??ve poslaly jednotky do Ir?ku). Jejich ??ast by vedla k tomu, ?e by jednotky p?in?le?ej?c? k NATO m?lo v Afgh?nist?nu 60% b?val?ch sov?tsk?ch st?t?. P?id?me-li Mold?vii, budou m?t v?echny evropsk? zem? (vyjma mikrost?t? jako Andorra, Lichten?tejnsko, Monako, San Marino a Vatik?n), a s v?jimkou B?loruska, Kypru, Malty, Ruska a Srbska, v Afgh?nist?nu sv? jednotky slou??c? pod NATO.
Nikdy v historii sv?tov?ho v?l?en? se vojensk? kontingenty neskl?daly z tolika zem? – pades?ti ?i v?ce – kter? slou?ily na jednom boji?ti. V jedin? zemi. Jednotky z p?ti kontinent?, Oce?nie a St?edn?ho v?chodu. (3)
Dokonce i ?dajn? koalice ochotn?ch, slepen? USA a Brit?ni? po invazi do Ir?ku v b?eznu 2003, a? do doby, kdy byly jednotky p?et?hnuty do Afgh?nist?nu, se skl?dala pouze ze sil z t?iceti jedna zem?: USA, Brit?nie, Alb?nie, Arm?nie, Austr?lie, ?zerb?jd??nu, Bosny, Bulharska, Chorvatska, ?esk? republiky, D?nska, El Salvadoru, Estonska, Gruzie, Ma?arska, Japonska, It?lie, Kazachst?nu, Loty?ska, Litvy, Makedonie, Mold?vie, Mongolska, Polska, Rumunska, Slovenska, Slovinska, Ji?n? Koreje, ?pan?lska, Thajska a Ukrajiny. Dvacet dva z t?chto t?iceti jedna p?isp?vatel? jsou zem? b?val?ho sov?tsk?ho bloku (Alb?nie vzd?len?) nebo republiky b?val? Jugosl?vie, kter? se ned?vno (1999) p?ipojily k NATO nebo byly p?ipravov?ny na integraci do tohoto bloku ?i za?len?n? jin?m zp?sobem.
Posledn? t?i velk? sv?tov? v?lky – v?lky v a proti Jugosl?vii, Afgh?nist?nu a Ir?ku – byly pou?ity jako zkou?ka a cvi?i?t? pro expanzi glob?ln?ho NATO.
Konsolidace mezin?rodn?ch (?dern?ch) sil rychl? reakce a fungov?n? arm?dy pod ??zen?m NATO tento t?den d?le pokro?ila, zaprv? projevem Obamy o nav??en? jednotek, a posl?ze ?sil?m ministryn? zahrani?? Hillary Clinton a gener?ln?ho tajemn?ka NATO Anderse Fogh Rasmussena naverbovat v?ce spojeneck?ch jednotek na ned?vno zakon?en?m setk?n? ministr? zahrani?? NATO (a spojenc?).
4. prosince „vrcholov? p?edstavitel NATO ?ekl, … ?e dal?? jednotky o celkov? s?le 7,000 mu?? po?le p???t? rok do Afgh?nist?nu nejm?n? 25 zem?, „kdy dal?? jednotky budou n?sledovat“, jak se americk? ministryn? zahrani?? Hillary Rodham Clinton sna?ila vzpru?it odhodl?n? spojenc?“. (4) Setk?n? NATO v Bruselu nav?t?vil tak? neur?en? po?et ministr? zahrani?? ne?lensk?ch zem? NATO, poskytuj?c?ch jednotky pro afgh?nskou v?lku, vrchn? velitel v?ech americk?ch jednotek a jednotek NATO gener?l Stanley McChrystal a afgh?nsk? ministr zahrani?? Rangeen Dadfar Spanta.
7,000 dal??ch voj?k?, kdy „p?ibudou dal??“, by p?edstavovalo dal?? hlavy ke st?vaj?c?m zhruba 42,000 neamerick?m voj?k?, kte?? v sou?asn? dob? slou?? v r?mci NATO a 35,000 americk?m voj?k?m ?in?c?m tot??, co? znamen? nejm?n? 85,000 voj?k? pod velen?m NATO, a to bez on?ch 33,000 nov?ch americk?ch voj?k?, kte?? do Afgh?nist?nu sm??uj?. Nejv?t??m nasazen?m bloku v zahrani?? p?edt?m bylo Kosovo v r. 1999, kdy na sv?m vrcholu tvo?ily alianc? veden? kosovsk? s?ly 50,000 voj?k? z 39 zem?. (5)
Spole?n? americk? s?ly a s?ly NATO budou p?edstavovat obrovsk? ??slo, v?ce ne? 150,000 voj?k?. Pro srovn?n?, v z??? tohoto roku bylo v Ir?ku zhruba 120,000 americk?ch voj?k?, a pouze mal? hrstka person?lu z jin?ch zem?, p?i?azen?ho do v?cvikov? mise – Ir?k NATO, v r?mci kter? tam jsou.
V r?mci ?lensk?ch zem? NATO italsk? ministr obrany Ignazio La Russa ned?vno ozn?mil nav??en? jednotek o 1,000 mu??, co? zvedlo celkov? po?et voj?k? t?to zem? na t?m?? 4,500, o 50% v?ce, ne? bylo p?edt?m nasazeno v Ir?ku.
Polsko po?le dal??ch 600-700 voj?k?, a p?id?me-li je k t?m v Afgh?nist?nu, bude to p?edstavovat nejv?t?? po?et nasazen?ch polsk?ch jednotek v zahrani?? v pov?le?n?m obdob? a nejv?t?? po?et jednotek, kter? kdy byly nasazeny v historii t?to zem? mimo Evropu.
Brit?nie poskytne dal??ch 500 voj?k?, kdy se tak celkov? po?et p?ibl??? 10,000.
Bulharsk? ministr obrany Nikolaj Mladenov minul? t?den ?ekl, ?e „existuje siln? mo?nost, ?e jeho zem? nav??? sv?j vojensk? kontingent v Afgh?nist?nu“. (6) Aby nazna?il povahu z?vazk? nov?ch ?lensk?ch st?t? NATO, kter? jsou nalo?eny na jejich bedra po p?ipojen? se k alianci, a to, co se pak stane jejich prioritou, o t?i dny d??ve Mladenov, mluv?c? o rozpo?tov?ch probl?mech v souvislosti s ozbrojen?mi silami v d?sledku sou?asn? finan?n? krize, ujistil, ?e „m??eme se?krtat n?kter? jin? polo?ky arm?dn?ho rozpo?tu, ale pro mise v zahrani?? bude v?dy existovat dostatek pen?z“. (7)
Washington tak? tla?il na Chorvatsko, kter? se stalo plnohodnotn?m ?lenem bloku letos v dubnu, aby dodalo v?ce jednotek, a premi?rka Jadranka Kosor se urychlen? zav?zala, ?e „Chorvatsko, jako ?len NATO, sv? z?vazky spln?“. (8)
Ministr obrany ?esk? republiky Martin Bart?k, kter? promluvil po Obamov? projevu o nav??en? jednotek, na za??tku t?dne hrozil ?esk?mu parlamentu a uvedl: „Bude se muset spojenc?m vysv?tlit, pro? se ?esk? republika nechce z??astnit pos?len?, zat?mco Slovensko a Brit?nie, nap??klad, sv? kontingenty pos?l?…“ (9)
Slovensko ozn?milo, ?e sv? s?ly v Afgh?nist?nu v?ce ne? zdvojn?sob?.
N?meck? parlament ned?vno o dal?? rok prodlou?il nasazen? t?m?? 4,500 voj?k? sv? zem? v Afgh?nist?nu, tedy maximum, kter? je povoleno Bundestagem, a?koliv se vede diskuse o zv??en? po?tu na 7,000, po konferenci o Afgh?nist?nu v Lond?n? 28. ledna. N?meck? ozbrojen? s?ly v t?to zemi jsou zapojeny do prvn?ch pozemn?ch bojov?ch operac? N?mecka od konce druh? sv?tov? v?lky. 
Zpravodajstv? z 3. prosince uvedlo, ?e americk? velvyslanec v Turecku James Jeffrey tla?il na Ankaru, aby poskytla „specifick? po?et“ jednotek a aby byla „pru?n?j??“ (10) ohledn? toho, jak budou nasazeny, co? znamen?, ?e Turecko mus? zm?rnit sv?j tak zvan? odpor k boji a za??t s aktivn?m bojov?n?m spolu se sv?mi spojenci z NATO.
Po setk?n? s americk?m vice-prezidentem Josephem Bidenem 4. prosince ma?arsk? premi?r Gyorgy Gordon Bajnai p?isl?bil poslat do jihoasijsk? bojov? z?ny o 200 voj?k? v?ce, co? je n?r?st o 60%, proto?e Ma?arsko tam m? v sou?asnosti 360 voj?k?.
Co se t?k? partnersk?ch st?t? NATO, americk? n?m?stek ministra obrany pro Rusko, Ukrajinu a Euroasii Celeste Wallander byl v Arm?nii, aby tam zajistil prvn? vojenskou ??ast t?to zem? v Afgh?nist?nu, a p??ru?? prvn?ho zvl??tn?ho p?edstavitele NATO pro Kavkaz a st?edn? Asii Robert Simmons (11) tak? vyz?skal zdvojn?soben? po?tu jednotek od sousedn?ho ?zerb?jd??nu, a z?vazek a? 1,000 jednotek Gruzie na p???t? rok.
B?hem tiskov? konference v s?dle NATO prvn? den ned?vn?ho koncilu aliance o afgh?nsk? v?lce, 3. prosince, vyj?d?il ??f tohoto bloku Anders Fogh Rasmussen vd??nost Spojen?m arabsk?m emir?t?m za odesl?n? jednotek do Afgh?nist?nu a „po??d?n? Mezin?rodn? konference o vztaz?ch NATO- UAE a za vst??cn? krok na Istanbulsk? iniciativ? spolupr?ce v ??jnu“. (12)
Istanbulsk? iniciativa spolupr?ce vznikla na summitu NATO v Turecku v r. 2004, aby se pos?lilo vojensk? partnerstv? s ?leny St?edozemn?ho dialogu (Al??rsko, Egypt, Izrael, Jord?nsko, Mauret?nie, Maroko a Tunis) a s Radou spolupr?ce zem? Z?livu (Bahrajn, Kuvajt, Om?n, Katar, Saudsk? Ar?bie a Spojen? arabsk? emir?ty). (13)
Americk? vojensk? zpravodajsk? agentura zve?ejnila 3. prosince ?l?nek, kter? prob?ral ?tvrtletn? obrann? hodnocen?, kter? bylo ned?vno prob?r?no v Pentagonu.
N?m?stek ministra obrany William J. Lynn III, kter? p?edt?m, ne? se tohoto postu ujal, byl vice-prezidentem Vl?dn?ch operac? a strategie firmy Raytheon, se ?dajn? chv?stal, ?e „?tvrtletn? obrann? hodnocen? nebude jako ta p?ede?l?: zaprv? bude ta?eno st?vaj?c?mi v?le?n?mi po?adavky, aby se vyrovnaly konven?n? a nekonven?n? kapacity, a bude tak? p?ijat „celovl?dn?“ p??stup k n?rodn? bezpe?nosti… Jde o mezn?k QDR“.
Lynn tak? ?ekl, ?e „ministr Gates dal jasn? najevo, ?e konflikty, ve kter?ch se nach?z?me, by m?ly b?t v sam?m pop?ed? na?? agendy. Chce zajistit, ?e Pentagon bude skute?n? na v?le?n? stezce… Poprv? za des?tky let se hv?zdy ekonomiky a politiky sjednotily za z?kladn? renovac? toho, jak bude Pentagon pracovat“. (14)
V?ce ne? osm let v?lky v Afgh?nist?nu v r. 2011 neskon??, i p?es Obamovo uji??ov?n?, ani nebude tato v?lka posledn? tohoto druhu. Bude pokra?ovat a obs?hne sousedn? P?kist?n, s hrozbou, ?e se tato v?lka p?elije do st?edn? Asie a Ir?nu.
Krize, kter? sv?t ?el?, nen? jen v?lka v ji?n? Asii: je to v?lka samotn?. A obzvl??t? bezohlednost a nezodpov?dnost samozvan? jedin? velmoci a vojensk?ho bloku, kter? vede a kter? si osobuje v?hradn? pr?vo na ohro?ov?n? zem? na cel?m sv?t? vojenskou agres?. 
Pokud nebude t?to politice u?in?na p??tr? ze strany skute?n?ho mezin?rodn?ho spole?enstv? – kdy se mimo v?t?? auro-atlantick? sv?t (jak se s?m naz?v?) nach?z? v?ce ne? ?est sedmin lidstva — Afgh?nist?n nebude posledn? v?le?nou frontou tohoto stolet?, ale prvn? a prototypovou. P?edzv?st? mnohem hor??ch v?c?.
Pozn?mky
1) New York Daily News, December 4, 2009
2) New York Times, November 26, 2009
3) Afghan War: NATO Builds History’s First Global Army
Stop NATO, August 9, 2009
4) Associated Press, December 4, 2009
5) U.S., NATO Poised For Most Massive War In Afghanistan’s History
Stop NATO, September 24, 2009
6) Sofia News Agency, November 26, 2009
7) Standart News, November 23, 2009
8) Xinhua News Agency, December 3, 2009er 3, 2009
11) Mr. Simmons’ Mission: NATO Bases From Balkans To Chinese Border
Stop NATO, March 4, 2009
12) Emirates News Agency, December 3, 2009
13) NATO In Persian Gulf: From Third World War To Istanbul
Stop NATO, February 6, 2009
14) American Forces Press Service, December 3, 2009 
Categories: Uncategorized 
Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect Mankind
December 11, 2009 richardrozoff 1 comment 
Stop NATO
December 10, 2009
Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect Mankind
Rick Rozoff
President and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United States Barack Obama delivered his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance address in Oslo on December 10, which has immediately led to media discussion of an Obama Doctrine.
With obligatory references to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi (the second referred to only by his surname) but to no other American presidents than Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy – fellow peace prize recipients Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter weren’t mentioned – the U.S. head of state spoke with the self-assurance of the leader of the world’s first uncontested superpower and at times with the self-righteousness of a would-be prophet and clairvoyant. And, in the words of German philosopher Friedrich von Schlegel, a prophet looking backward. 
Accompanied by visionary gaze and cadenced, oratorical solemnity, his comments included the assertion that “War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man.” Unless this unsubstantiated claim was an allusion to the account in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible of Cain murdering his brother Abel, which would hardly constitute war in any intelligible meaning of the word (nor was Cain the first man according to that source), it is unclear where Obama acquired the conviction that war is coeval with and presumably an integral part of humanity.
Paleontologists generally trace the arrival of modern man, homo sapiens, back 200,000 years, yet the first authenticated written histories are barely 2,400 years old. How Obama and his speechwriters filled in the 197,600-year gap to prove that the practice of war is as old as mankind and implicitly inseparable from the human condition is a question an enterprising reporter might venture to ask at the next presidential press conference.
Perhaps delusions of omniscience is the answer. The Oslo speech is replete with references to and appropriations of the attributes of divinity. And to historical and anthropological fatalism; a deeply pessimistic concept of Providence.
Obama affirmed that “no Holy War can ever be a just war. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint.” Then shortly afterward stated “Let us reach for the world that ought to be – that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.” An adversary’s invocation of the divine is false, heretical, sacrilegious; Washington’s is true, unerring, sufficient to justify any action, however violent and deadly. As unadulterated an illustration of secular Manicheaism as can be found in the modern world.
Toward the beginning of his speech the first standing American president in ninety years to receive the Peace Prize acknowledged that “perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars.”
Understandably he exerted no effort to justify one of the two wars in question, that in Iraq, but endorsed and pledged the continuation of the other, that in Afghanistan and increasingly Pakistan – while elsewhere speaking disparagingly of the European Crusades of the later Middle Ages. 
Neither the Nobel Committee nor its honoree seemed inordinately if at all concerned by the unprecedented awarding of the prestigious and generous ($1.4 million) Peace Prize to a commander-in-chief in charge of two simultaneous wars far from his nation’s shores and in countries whose governments and peoples never threatened it in any manner. 
In language that never before was heard during a peace prize acceptance speech, Obama added “we are at war, and I’m responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed.”
With not a scintilla of national self-awareness, balance or irony, he also derided the fact that “modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale,” as he orders unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) linked by space satellites to launch deadly missile attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The central themes of Obama’s speech are reiterations of standing U.S. policy going back over a decade with the waging of war against Yugoslavia in early 1999 without United Nations authorization or even a nominal attempt to obtain one; that the U.S. and its Western military allies can decide individually and collectively when, to what degree, where and for what purpose to use military force anywhere in the world. And the prerogative to employ military force outside national borders is reserved exclusively for the United States, its fellow NATO members and select military clients outside the Euro-Atlantic zone such as Colombia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Israel and Saudi Arabia of late. 
What is arguably unique in Obama’s address is the bluntness with which it reaffirmed this doctrine of international lawlessness. Excerpts along this line, shorn of ingenuous qualifications and decorative camouflage, include:
“We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations – acting individually or in concert – will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”
He offered a summary of the just war argument that a White House researcher could have cribbed from Wikipedia.
“[A]s a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their [Gandhi's and King's] examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world.”
“I – like any head of state – reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation.”
Evil, as a noun rather than an adjective, is used twice in the speech, emblematic of a quasi-theological tone alternating with coldly and even callously pragmatic pronouncements.
Indicative of the second category are comments like these:
“[T]he instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace.”
“A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism….
“I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower.”
Comparing a small handful of al-Qaeda personnel to Hitler’s Wehrmacht is unconscionable. Whatever else the former are, they barely have arms to lay down. But Obama does, the world’s largest and most deadly conventional and nuclear arsenal.
His playing the trump card of Nazi Germany is not only an act of rhetorical recklessness, it is historically unjustified. There would have been no need to confront the Third Reich’s legions if timely diplomatic actions had been taken when Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland in 1936; if Britain and France had not collaborated with Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy to enforce the naval blockade of Republican Spain while German aircraft devastated Guernica and other towns and German and Italian troops poured into the country by the tens of thousands in support of Generalissimo Franco’s uprising. If, finally, Britain, France, Germany and Italy had not met in Munich in 1938 to sacrifice Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Hitler to encourage his murderous drive to the east. The same four nations met 70 years later, last year, to reprise the Munich betrayal by engineering the secession of Kosovo from Serbia, to demonstrate how much had been learned in the interim.
As to the accusation that many nations bear an alleged “deep ambivalence about military action” and even more so “a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower,” it bespeaks alike arrogance, sanctimony, and an absolute imperviousness to the reality of American foreign policy now and in the recent and not so recent past. According to this imperial “sole military superpower” perspective, the White House and the Pentagon can never be wrong. Not even partially, unavoidably or unintentionally.
If others find fault with anything the world’s only military juggernaut does, it is a reflection of their own misguided pacifism and ingrained, pathological “anti-Americanism.” Perhaps this constitutes the aforementioned “threats to the American people,” as there aren’t any others in Afghanistan or in the world as a whole that were convincingly identified in the speech.
What may be the most noteworthy – and disturbing – line in the address is what Obama characterised as the “recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.” Lest this observation be construed as an example of personal or national humility, other – grandiose Americocentric – comments surrounding it leave no doubt that the inadequacies in question are only applied to others.
One would search in vain for a comparable utterance by another American head of state. For a nation that prides itself on being the first one founded on the principles of the 18th century Enlightenment and the previous century’s Age of Reason, that its leader would lay stress on inherent and ineradicable human frailty and at least by implication on some truth that is apart from and superior to reason is nothing less than alarming. The door is left open to irrationalism and its correlates, that the ultimate right can be might and that there are national imperatives beyond good and evil.
And if people are by nature flawed and their reasoning correspondingly impaired, then for humanity, “Born but to die and reasoning but to err” (Alexander Pope), war may indeed be its birthright and violent conflicts will not be eradicated in its lifetime. War, which came into existence with mankind, will last as long as it does. They may both end, as Obama believes they originated, simultaneously.
How the leader of the West, both the nation and the individual, has arrived at this bleak and deterministic impasse was also mentioned in Obama’s speech in reference to pivotal post-Cold War events that have defined this new century.
It is only a single step from:
“I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That’s why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.”
To:
“The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. That’s why NATO continues to be indispensable.”
In proclaiming these and similar sentiments, Obama made reference to his host country in alluding to the war in Afghanistan: “[W]e are joined by 42 other countries – including Norway – in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.”
Again, threats are magnified to inflated and even universal dimensions. All nations on the planet are threatened and some of them – 43 NATO states and partners – are fending off the barbarians at the gates. It is difficult to distinguish the new Obama Doctrine from the preceding Blair and Bush ones except in regard to its intended scope.
It is a mission outside of time, space and constraints. “The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms….America’s commitment to global security will never waver. But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace. This is true in Afghanistan. This is true in failed states like Somalia….And sadly, it will continue to be true in unstable regions for years to come.
“The leaders and soldiers of NATO countries, and other friends and allies, demonstrate this truth through the capacity and courage they’ve shown in Afghanistan.”
The U.S. president adduced other nations – by name – that present threats to America and its values, its allies and the world as a whole in addition to Afghanistan and Somalia, which are Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan and Zimbabwe. All five were either on George W. Bush’s post-September 11 list of state sponsors of terrorism or on Condoleezza Rice’s later roster of “outposts of tyranny” or both. 
Hopes that the policies of Obama’s predecessor were somehow outside of the historical continuum, solely related to the aftermath of September 11, 2001, have been dashed. The rapidly escalating war in South Asia is proof enough of that lamentable fact. War is not a Biblical suspension of ethics but the foundation of national policy. 
In his novel La B?te Humaine (The Human Beast) Emile Zola interwove images of a French crowd clamoring for a disastrous war with Prussia (“A Berlin!”) and a locomotive heading at full steam down the track without an engineer. Obama’s speech in Oslo indicates that America remains bent on rushing headlong to war even after a change of engineers. Veteran war hawks Robert Gates, James Jones, Richard Holbrooke, David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal have stoked the furnace for a long run. 
Categories: Uncategorized 
El lazo transatl?ntico secreto de la OTAN: Armas nucleares en Europa
December 9, 2009 richardrozoff Leave a comment 
Stop NATO
December 8, 2009
El lazo transatl?ntico secreto de la OTAN
Armas nucleares en Europa
Rick Rozoff
Traducido del ingl?s para Rebeli?n por Germ?n Leyens 
———-
“Veinte a?os despu?s de la ca?da del Muro de Berl?n, pilotos holandeses, belgas, italianos y alemanes siguen listos para participar en la guerra nuclear.” 
“Fuerzas nucleares basadas en Europa y comprometidas con la OTAN proveen un v?nculo pol?tico y militar esencial entre los miembros europeos y norteamericanos de la Alianza. La Alianza mantendr? por ello fuerzas nucleares adecuadas en Europa.” 
“Aunque t?cnicamente son de propiedad de EE.UU., las bombas nucleares almacenadas en las bases de la OTAN est?n destinadas a ser lanzadas por aviones del pa?s anfitri?n.” 
“El Departamento de Defensa, en coordinaci?n con el Departamento de Estado, deber?a involucrar a sus contrapartes apropiadas entre los aliados de la OTAN en la reevaluaci?n y confirmaci?n del papel de las armas nucleares en la estrategia y pol?tica de la Alianza para el futuro.”
———-
?Es Italia capaz de lanzar un ataque termonuclear? ?Podr?an belgas y holandeses lanzar bombas de hidr?geno sobre objetivos enemigos?… No es posible que la fuerza a?rea alemana est? entrenando para lanzar bombas 13 veces m?s poderosas que la que destruy? Hiroshima, ?O tal vez s?? 
Lo anterior proviene del p?rrafo de apertura de un art?culo en la edici?n en l?nea del 2 de diciembre de Time magazine online, titulado “Qu? hacer respecto a las bombas nucleares secretas de Europa.” 
En respuesta a las preguntas ret?ricas planteadas adopta el tono enormemente serio que corresponde al tema al declarar: “Es el secreto sucio de Europa que la lista de pa?ses con capacidad nuclear va m?s all? de los que –Gran Breta?a y Francia– han construido sus propias armas. Bombas nucleares se almacenan en bases de la fuerza a?rea en Italia, B?lgica, Alemania y Holanda –y aviones de cada uno de esos pa?ses son capaces de lanzarlas.” 
El autor del art?culo, Eben Harrell, quien escribi? un trabajo igualmente revelador para el mismo medio noticioso en junio de 2008, cita a la Federaci?n de Cient?ficos Estadounidenses que afirma que se estima que hay 200 bombas termonucleares de gravedad B61 estadounidenses estacionadas en los cuatro Estados miembro de la OTAN mencionados. Una quinta naci?n de la OTAN que alberga ojivas, Turqu?a, no se menciona en el art?culo. En la noticia previa de Time aludida anteriormente, el autor Harrell escribi? que “EE.UU. mantiene unas 350 bombas termonucleares en seis pa?ses de la OTAN.” [1] Hay tres variaciones de la B61, “hasta 10 [? 13] veces m?s poderosas que la bomba de Hiroshima [2] – B61-3s, B61-4s y B61-10s – estacionadas en ocho bases en Estados de la Alianza. 
El autor record? a los lectores de la revista que “bajo un acuerdo de la OTAN hecho durante la Guerra Fr?a, las bombas, que son t?cnicamente de propiedad de EE.UU., pueden transferirse al control de la fuerza a?rea de la naci?n anfitriona en tiempos de conflicto. Veinte a?os despu?s de la ca?da del Muro de Berl?n, los pilotos holandeses, belgas, italianos y alemanes siguen listos para participar en una guerra nuclear.” [3] 
La B61 es la principal arma de hidr?geno del Pent?gono, una “bomba de peso ligero [que puede ser lanzada por… aviones de la Fuerza A?rea, de la Armada y de la OTAN a altitudes muy elevadas y a velocidades sobre Mach 2.” 
Tambi?n, “se puede lanzar a altas velocidades desde altitudes de s?lo 15 metros. Hasta 22 tipos diferentes de avi?n pueden transportar externa o internamente la B61. Esta arma se puede lanzar en ca?da libre o retardada por paraca?das; se puede detonar por explosi?n en el aire o en tierra.” [4] 
Los aviones capaces de transportar y utilizar la bomba incluyen los aviones stealth de nueva generaci?n como el bombardero B-1 y el F-35 Lightning II (Joint Strike Fighter multirol), capaz de penetrar defensas a?reas y de lanzar cargas convencionales y nucleares. 
El programa Prompt Global Strike del Pent?gono que “podr?a incluir nuevas generaciones de aviones y armamentos cinco veces m?s r?pidos que cualquier cosa en el actual arsenal estadounidense,” incluidos el “misil crucero hipers?nico X-51, dise?ado para llegar a Mach 5 –aproximadamente 1.600 metros por segundo.” [5] Tambi?n se podr?a configurar para uso en Europa, ya que EE.UU. posee misiles crucero con ojivas nucleares para despliegue en aviones y barcos. Pero los aviones de guerra destinados a transportar armas nucleares estadounidenses en Europa son los de sus aliados de la OTAN, incluidos Tornados alemanes, variantes de los cuales se utilizaron en la guerra a?rea de la OTAN en 1999 contra Yugoslavia, y que actualmente est?n desplegados en Afganist?n. 
Se supone que hay 130 ojivas nucleares de EE.UU. en Ramstein y 20 en la base a?rea Buechel en Alemania y 20 en la Base A?rea Kleine Brogel en B?lgica. Adem?s, hay informes sobre docenas m?s en Italia (en Aviano y Ghedi), e incluso m?s, el mayor contingente de armas nucleares estadounidenses fuera del propio EE.UU., en Turqu?a en la base a?rea Incirlik. [6] 
Las ojivas no s?lo est?n estacionadas en naciones de la OTAN sino que lo hacen expl?citamente como parte de una pol?tica de sesenta a?os de la Alianza, en realidad una piedra angular importante de la OTAN. Un art?culo de esta serie escrito antes de la cumbre del sesenta aniversario del bloque en Francia y Alemania en abril pasado, “NATO’s Sixty Year Legacy: Threat Of Nuclear War In Europe [7], examin? el inextricable v?nculo entre la fundaci?n de la OTAN en 1949 y el despliegue de armas nucleares y sistemas de lanzamiento de EE.UU. en Europa. Uno de los prop?sitos principales de la fundaci?n de la Alianza fue exactamente que permitiera la colocaci?n y uso de armas nucleares estadounidenses en el continente. 
Siete meses despu?s de la creaci?n del bloque, la Doctrina de Defensa de la OTAN de noviembre de 1949 especific? que se asegurara “la capacidad de realizar bombardeos estrat?gicos incluido el r?pido transporte de la bomba at?mica. Es primordialmente una responsabilidad de EE.UU. con la ayuda en la medida de lo posible de otras naciones.” [8] 
El actual Manual de la OTAN contiene una secci?n titulada Fuerzas Nucleares de la OTAN en el Nuevo Entorno de Seguridad que contiene el pasaje siguiente: 
“Durante la Guerra Fr?a, las fuerzas nucleares de la OTAN tuvieron un papel central en la estrategia de reacci?n flexible de la Alianza… Las fuerzas nucleares estaban integradas en el conjunto de la estructura de la fuerza de la OTAN, y la Alianza manten?a una variedad de planes, incluidos objetivos que se pod?a realizar a corto plazo. Este papel demandaba altos niveles de preparaci?n y posturas de alerta de r?pida reacci?n para partes importantes de las fuerzas nucleares de la OTAN.” [9] 
En ning?n momento el despliegue y el pretendido uso de armas nucleares de EE.UU. formaron parte de una estrategia de disuasi?n nuclear. La antigua Uni?n Sovi?tica era mostrada como si tuviera una superioridad en armas convencionales en Europa y la doctrina de EE.UU. y de la OTAN preve?a el primer uso de bombas nucleares. ?stas estaban basadas en varios Estados de la OTAN en el continente como parte de lo que se llam? un arreglo de “repartici?n nuclear” o de “repartici?n de la carga nuclear”: Aunque las bombas almacenadas en Europa eran estadounidenses y estaban bajo el control del Pent?gono, los planes de guerra preve?an que se cargasen en bombarderos de otras naciones de la OTAN para su uso contra la Uni?n Sovi?tica y sus aliados (no-nucleares) europeos orientales. La propia URSS, a prop?sito, no ensay? con ?xito su primera bomba at?mica hasta cuatro meses despu?s de la formaci?n de la OTAN. 
Con la disoluci?n del Pacto de Varsovia, formado seis a?os despu?s de la OTAN y como reacci?n a la inclusi?n de la Rep?blica Federal de Alemania en el bloque (y el env?o por EE.UU. de armas nucleares a esa naci?n), y de la propia Uni?n Sovi?tica en 1991, el Pent?gono retir? la mayor parte de las 7.000 ojivas que tuvo en Europa, pero sigue manteniendo cientos de bombas nucleares t?cticas. 
En la cumbre del cincuenta aniversario de la OTAN en 1999 en Washington, D.C., mientras el bloque realizaba su primera guerra, la campa?a de bombardeo de 78 d?as contra Yugoslavia, y se expand?a para incorporar a tres antiguos miembros del Pacto de Varsovia (la Rep?blica Checa, Hungr?a y Polonia), tambi?n aprob? su nuevo y todav?a operativo Concepto Estrat?gico que declara en parte: 
“La suprema garant?a de la seguridad de los Aliados es suministrada por las fuerzas nucleares estrat?gicas de la Alianza, particularmente las de EE.UU.; las fuerzas nucleares independientes del Reino Unido y Francia, que tienen un papel disuasivo propio, contribuyen a la disuasi?n general y a la seguridad de los Aliados. 
“Una postura nuclear veros?mil de la Alianza y la demostraci?n de solidaridad de la Alianza… siguen requiriendo la amplia participaci?n de Aliados Europeos involucrados en la planificaci?n de la defensa colectiva en roles nucleares, en la instalaci?n en tiempos de paz de fuerzas nucleares en su territorio y en acuerdos de comando, control y consulta. Las fuerzas nucleares basadas en Europa y comprometidas con la OTAN suministran un v?nculo pol?tico y militar esencial entre los miembros europeos y norteamericanos de la Alianza. Por ello la Alianza mantendr? fuerzas nucleares adecuadas en Europa.” [10] 
El informe de Time de 2008 dice que la pol?tica actual es: 
“Un acuerdo de ‘repartici?n de cargas’ que ha sido parte del centro de la pol?tica militar de la OTAN desde su inicio. 
“Aunque t?cnicamente son de propiedad de EE.UU., las bombas nucleares almacenadas en bases de la OTAN est?n destinadas a ser lanzadas por aviones del pa?s anfitri?n. [11] 
Tambi?n se refiri? a la Air Force Blue Ribbon Review of Nuclear Weapons Policies and Procedures publicada en febrero de 2008 que “recomend? que los recursos nucleares estadounidenses en Europa se consoliden, lo que los analistas interpretan como una recomendaci?n de que se desplacen las bombas a bases de la OTAN bajo ‘alas estadounidenses’ queriendo decir bases de EE.UU. en Europa.” [12] 
Ambos art?culos en Time de Eben Harrell, el del a?o pasado y el de este mes, subrayan que la colocaci?n de ojivas nucleares en el territorio de naciones no nucleares –y B?lgica, Alemania, Italia, Holanda y Turqu?a son naciones no nucleares– constituye una crasa violaci?n del Tratado de No Proliferaci?n Nuclear (TNP), cuyos primeros dos Art?culos declaran, respectivamente: 
Cada uno de los Estados de armas nucleares Parte del Tratado, asume no transferir a ning?n pa?s las armas nucleares u otros instrumentos explosivos o controlar tales armas o explosivos directa o indirectamente; y no ayudar de ninguna manera, animar o inducir a ning?n Estado no nuclear a fabricar o adquirir armas nucleares u otros instrumentos explosivos o controlar sobre tales armas o instrumentos explosivos. 
Cada Estado carente de arma nuclear, Parte del Tratado, asume no recibir la transferencia por ning?n transferidor de las armas nucleares u otros instrumentos explosivos o controlar sobre tales armas o explosivos directa o indirectamente; no manufacturar o adquirir armas nucleares u otros instrumentos nucleares; y no buscar o recibir ninguna asistencia en la fabricaci?n de las armas nucleares u otros instrumentos nucleares explosivos. [13] 
Luego, el art?culo de Time del 2 de diciembre, se?ala que la presencia continua de ojivas nucleares de EE.UU. en Europa es “m?s que un anacronismo o una rareza hist?rica. ?stas [las armas] constituyen una violaci?n del esp?ritu del Tratado de No Proliferaci?n Nuclear (TNP)…”
“Porque ‘la repartici?n de la carga nuclear,’ como se llama la dispersi?n de B61 en Europa, se estableci? antes de que el TNP entrara en vigor, es t?cnicamente legal. Pero como firmantes del TNP, los cuatro pa?ses y EE.UU. se han comprometido a ‘no recibir la transferencia… de armas nucleares o controlar sobre tales armas directa, o indirectamente.’ Eso, por cierto, es precisamente lo que representa el antiguo arreglo de la OTAN.” [14] 
El autor tambi?n mencion? el informe de la Fuerza de Tareas del Secretario de Defensa sobre Administraci?n de Armas Nucleares, presidida por el ex secretario de defensa de EE.UU. James Schlesinger, Fase I [15] que se public? en septiembre y la Fase II [16] en diciembre de 2008. La segunda parte del informe contiene una secci?n llamada: Disuasi?n: el caso especial de la OTAN, que declara: 
“La Organizaci?n del Tratado del Atl?ntico Norte (OTAN) representa un caso especial de disuasi?n, tanto por la historia como por la presencia de armas nucleares… La presencia de armas nucleares de EE.UU. sigue siendo un pilar de la unidad de la OTAN. El despliegue de armas nucleares en Europa no es un tema de Servicio o de comando combatiente regional – es un tema de la Alianza. Mientras los miembros de la OTAN se basen en armas nucleares de EE.UU. para la disuasi?n – y mientras mantengan sus propios aviones de doble capacidad como parte de esa disuasi?n – no se deb?r?a emprender ninguna acci?n para removerlas sin un proceso exhaustivo y deliberado de consulta. 
“El Departamento de Defensa, en coordinaci?n con el Departamento de Estado debe involucrar a sus contrapartes apropiadas entre los aliados de la OTAN en la reevaluaci?n y confirmaci?n del papel de las armas nucleares en la estrategia y pol?tica para el futuro de la Alianza. 
“El Departamento de Defensa debe asegurar que el F-35 de doble capacidad se mantenga dentro del plazo previsto. M?s demoras podr?an llevar a crecientes niveles de riesgo pol?tico y estrat?gico y a la reducci?n de las opciones estrat?gicas para EE.UU. y la Alianza.” 
El F-35 es el Joint Strike Fighter, avi?n de combate de multirol, del que su fabricante Lockheed Martin alardea que “suministra a EE.UU. y gobiernos aliados un avi?n de combate abordable, furtivo, de 5? generaci?n para el Siglo XXI.” [17] 
Lejos de que el fin de la Guerra Fr?a haya se?alado la eliminaci?n de una cat?strofe nuclear en Europa, de muchas maneras las cosas son ahora a?n m?s precarias. La expansi?n de la OTAN durante la ?ltima d?cada la ha llevado ahora a las fronteras de Rusia. Cinco miembros plenos (Estonia, Letonia, Lituania, Noruega y Polonia) y otros tantos asociados de la Asociaci?n para la Paz (Azerbaiy?n, Finlandia, Georgia, Kazajst?n y Ucrania) est?n directamente contiguos al territorio ruso y durante cinco a?os aviones de combate de la OTAN han realizado patrullas a?reas sobre la regi?n del Mar B?ltico, a tres minutos de vuelo de San Petersburgo. [18]
Si el lanzamiento hace diez a?os del primer ataque armado sin provocaci?n previa contra una naci?n europea desde las guerras de Hitler de 1939-1941 y la actual guerra – la m?s larga y de mayor escala en el Sur de Asia – no fueran motivos suficientes para exigir la abolici?n del ?nico bloque militar del mundo, la as? llamada OTAN global, la insistencia de la Alianza en su derecho a estacionar – y emplear – armas nucleares en Europa es ciertamente motivo suficiente para relegarla a los tenebrosos d?as de la Guerra Fr?a y al olvido. 
Notas 
1) Time, June 19, 2008
2) Ib?d.
3) Time, December 2, 2009
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1943799,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
4) Global Security
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b61.htm
5) Popular Mechanics, January 2007
6) Turkish Daily News, June 30, 2008
7) NATO’s Sixty Year Legacy: Threat Of Nuclear War In Europe
Stop NATO, March 31, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/natos-sixty-year-legacy-threat-of-nuclear-war-in-europe
8) www.nato.int/docu/stratdoc/eng/intro.pdf
9) http://www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2001/hb0206.htm 
10) NATO, April 24, 1999
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_27433.htm
11) Time, June 19, 2008
12) Ibid
13) http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/npttreaty.html
14) Time, December 2, 2009
15) http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/Phase_I_Report_Sept_10.pdf
16) www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/PhaseIIReportFinal.pdf
17) Lockheed Martin 
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/products/f35
18) Baltic Sea: Flash Point For NATO-Russia Conflict
Stop NATO, February 27, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/baltic-sea-flash-point-for-nato-russia-conflict
Scandinavia And The Baltic Sea: NATO’s War Plans For The High North
Stop NATO, June 14, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/scandinavia-and-the-baltic-sea-natos-war-plans-for-the-high-north
Categories: Uncategorized 
Nobel Committee Celebrates War As Peace
December 8, 2009 richardrozoff 1 comment 
Stop NATO
December 8, 2009
Nobel Committee Celebrates War As Peace
Rick Rozoff
On Thursday December 10 U.S. President Barack Obama will receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced its selection for the prize on October 9 of this year, less than nine months after Obama assumed the mantle of the American presidency and less than a month after that announced the doubling of his nation’s troops for the world’s longest-running war in Afghanistan. The first contingent of new forces, consisting of 1,500 Marines, is to arrive next week, right before Christmas.
Nine days before the bestowal of the Nobel Peace Prize, the American president delivered a speech at the West Point Military Academy in which he pledged an additional 30,000 troops for a war now in its ninth year. His (and his predecessor George W. Bush’s) Defense Secretary Robert Gates hastened to add that 3,000 more support troops would be deployed, bringing the total to over 100,000, only 20,000 short of American soldiers in Iraq, and with as many as 50,000 more non-U.S. forces serving under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. In his West Point address Obama reminded his listeners that “When I took office, we had just over 32,000 Americans serving in Afghanistan….” He has ordered that number to be more than tripled. 
A brief report on Obama’s peace prize appeared on the CBS News website on December 7 with the seemingly paradoxical title “A Peace Prize for a War President” by the news agency’s White House correspondent, Mark Knoller.
Neither the title nor the article it introduced was ironic. They reflected the straightforward truth.
The feature stated “There’ll be no effort by Barack Obama to disguise or obscure the fact that he’s a war president when he accepts the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Thursday. 
“The ceremony takes place ten days after he announced plans to escalate the U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan by deploying another 30,000 American troops there.” 
The selection of Obama evoked a prompt and aptly indignant response from Michel Chossudovsky at the Centre for Research on Globalization, who on October 11 published a piece called “Obama and the Nobel Prize: When War Becomes Peace, When the Lie becomes the Truth” [1] which stated inter alia that “When the Commander in Chief of the largest military force on planet earth is presented as a global peace-maker,” then “the Lie becomes the Truth.”
Although there are no firm, codified guidelines for nominating and agreeing upon a Peace Prize recipient, Alfred Nobel’s will states that it should be conferred upon a “person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” 
Those criteria have arguably never been honored or strictly abided by since the annual prize was first awarded in 1901. Several winners have been cited for helping to end wars – often by simply prevailing in them. One of the two American presidents previously awarded the prize while in office, Woodrow Wilson, is such a one.
The other was Theodore Roosevelt, who as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897 said “I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one.”
Both Roosevelt in 1906 and Wilson in 1919 were standing presidents when they received the prize. The first had fought in Cuba during the Spanish-American War (the war he demanded a year before it began) and Wilson brought the United States into the First World War.
The Spanish-American War inaugurated the expansion of the U.S. from a hemispheric to an Asia Pacific power. And an empire. World War I placed the American army on the European continent for the first time and signaled its emergence as a international military power. Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901 when William McKinley, who launched the conflict with Spain and acquired Cuba, Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico as spoils of war, was assassinated; Wilson not only sent over one million soldiers to France but also deployed 13,000 troops to fight the new Russian government of Vladimir Lenin in 1918.
But neither Roosevelt nor Wilson were commanders-in-chief of a war when they were given the Nobel Prize. And they received it for, at least in theory, contributing to ending wars; the Russo-Japanese War and World War I, respectively. Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to a head of state escalating a war already in its ninth year half a world away from his own nation is a precedent that was reserved for this year.
Reuters quoted White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on December 7 stating “We’ll address directly the notion that many have wondered, which is the juxtaposition of the timing for the Nobel Peace Prize and – and his [Obama's] commitment to add more troops around – into Afghanistan.” 
Juxtaposition, paradox, irony, contradiction and so forth are terms too weak and inaccurate to describe the timing of the announcement of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient, coming as it did between two pledges of military reinforcements for the world’s largest-scale and longest-running war. Travesty is a better word.
Speculation was rife after October 9 regarding the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s rationale and motives for awarding Obama the prize, and press pundits were not amiss in offering explanations. But actions are more revealing than assumed or imaginary intentions and what the Nobel Committee has accomplished is to yet further tarnish its reputation and that of the prize it grants.
It is hard to think of any recipient, and surely any recent one, who personifies the qualities indicated by Alfred Nobel himself. Advocating and working for peace seem to have little if anything to do with being awarded the nominal Peace Prize. But twice in the last three years it has been conferred upon individuals far more deserving of indictment for violating the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal, especially that section of Principle VI, Crimes against peace, which is defined as “Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances.”
Two years ago the prize was shared by Al Gore, who as the vice president of the U.S.’s first post-Cold War administration helped preside over deadly street battles in Somalia and bombing – incessant bombing – attacks in Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sudan and Yugoslavia. And the launching of Plan Colombia in 1999, the latest fruit of which is the Pentagon’s acquisition of seven new military bases in the country and the resulting threat of armed conflict with its neighbors. Arranged by this year’s Peace Prize recipient. But, again, Gore received the prize years after leaving office and for work in an area unrelated to his former government posts.
Obama’s December 1 speech was larded with lines evocative of the worst rhetorical excesses of his predecessor combined with allusions to broadening the war reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s and Henry Kissinger’s expansion of what had previously been America’s longest war from Vietnam into Cambodia in 1970. “[S]hortly after taking office, I approved a long-standing request for more troops. After consultations with our allies, I then announced a strategy recognizing the fundamental connection between our war effort in Afghanistan, and the extremist safe-havens in Pakistan. I set a goal that was narrowly defined as disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda and its extremist allies….” 
The current administration has, in addition to plans to boost combined U.S. and NATO (“our allies”) military forces to 150,000 in Afghanistan, dramatically escalated drone missile attacks inside neighboring Pakistan and, as the above quote demonstrates, declared western and southern Pakistan part of the expanding war theater.
The president mentioned or alluded to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization several times in his address, in one instance with a degree of hyperbole that is as frightening as it is extravagant. “For what’s at stake is not simply a test of NATO’s credibility – what’s at stake is the security of our Allies, and the common security of the world. 
“We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border.”
The entire world is threatened by a spreading cancer. This alarmist and crude phraseology was employed by a 21st century leader of the world’s superpower, a Harvard graduate, but could as well have been lifted from the lowest yellow journalism screed of the Cold War.
In attempting to deny the obvious – the inevitable – Obama continued by stating that “there are those who suggest that Afghanistan is another Vietnam. They argue that it cannot be stabilized, and we are better off cutting our losses and rapidly withdrawing. Yet this argument depends upon a false reading of history. Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations….” Troops from America’s NATO and NATO partner vassals and tributaries in the war against barbarians – the terms are those of Zbigniew Brzezinski from his 1997 The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives – will not be limited to the war in Afghanistan, which in fact is a laboratory for a far broader global strategy, as “The struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly, and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan….Where al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold – whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere – they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships.”
U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones said in October that “according to the maximum estimate, al Qaeda has fewer than 100 fighters operating in Afghanistan without any bases or ability to launch attacks on the West.” Government estimates for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan are in the neighborhood of 20,000.
This is the global cancer that requires 150,000 U.S. and NATO troops and an Afghan army of a quarter million or more troops. And a war that will continue well beyond the 2011 deadline mentioned in the West Point speech and be fought with intensified vigor and as far from Afghanistan as the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Southeast Asian archipelago.
With the deployment of “senior members of Mr. Obama’s war council,” as the New York Times characterized them, on the Sunday morning television news program circuit on December 7, the scope and the length of the already biggest and longest war in the world became undeniable.
The National Security Adviser, former Marine general and NATO top military commander James Jones, told CNN’s State of the Union: “We have strategic interests in South Asia that should not be measured in terms of finite times. We’re going to be in the region for a long time.”
He added that the influx of more American and NATO troops “will allow us to move our forces back towards the border regions, where really the most important struggle that we’re going to have is to make sure that on the Pakistani side of the border, that we eliminate the safe havens.” 
Pentagon chief Robert Gates said on NBC’s Meet the Press that although there would still be over 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan in 2011, only “some handful, or some small number, or whatever the conditions permit, will begin to withdraw at that time.”
The Pentagon’s Central Command chief, General David Petraeus, appeared on Fox News Sunday and acknowledged that there were no plans for a “rush to the exits” and that there “could be tens of thousands of American troops in Afghanistan for several years.” [2]
Little noted with the expansion of the war is that its range is widening as its intensity is deepening.
The top U.S. Air Force commander in Europe and Eurasia, General Roger A. Brady, was in Georgia on December 7 and in the neighboring South Caucasus nation of Azerbaijan on the 8th to discuss both nations’ increased troop deployments to Afghanistan and solidifying strategic military relations.
The president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has recently and once again threatened war against Nagorno Karabakh and by unavoidable implication Armenia, which is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization with Russia. The latter is obligated to provide Armenia military assistance under terms of the treaty in the event of it becoming the victim of aggression. With the American commander listening attentively, defense minister of Azerbaijan Colonel-General Safar Abiyev said that ongoing negotiations over Nagorno Karabakh “were not fruitful and such a situation forced Azerbaijan to use other ways to liberate its lands from the occupation.” [3]
On December 4 the president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, who fought a five-day war with Russia in August of last year, spoke of his offering the U.S. and NATO 1,000 more troops for the Afghan war and ominously added: “This is a unique chance for our soldiers to receive a real combat baptism.
“We do not need the army only for showing it in military parades….While our allies – in this case the United States and Europe – are concentrating on other issues [Afghanistan and Iraq], our enemy is getting active. The sooner the Afghan situation is resolved and sooner the war is over in Iraq, [the sooner] Georgia will be more protected.” [4]
The enemy is Russia and the quid pro quo is U.S.-trained Georgian troops receiving a war zone “baptism” for a future conflict with their “numerous, dangerous and perfidious” adversary. The adjectives are also Saakashvili’s, as are these words: “We need an army that knows how to fight. And participation in the operation in Afghanistan is a unique chance to study this and receive experience….Our final aim is to free the occupied territories [Abkhazia and South Ossetia] and unite and integrate Georgia.” [5]
Other nations are obtaining combat experience in Afghanistan under NATO auspices for use in and on the borders of their homelands, including, like Azerbaijan and Georgia, nations bordering Russia – Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Norway, Poland and Ukraine – as well as future belligerents in conflicts elsewhere like Colombia, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. 
If the world’s sole superpower and its NATO entourage can employ the military necessity at will to advance their interests abroad, their “vassals” will be emboldened to do so nearer home and will receive the arms and training to execute their designs.
Far from promoting peace, even an enforced peace, a Pax Americana, the war in Afghanistan and U.S. foreign policy in general are igniting power kegs around the world.
If it can be argued that Obama inherited the war in South Asia from George W. Bush and is intent on “finishing the job,” his signing of the $106 billion Iraq and Afghanistan War Supplemental Appropriations in July and the $680 billion 2010 National Defense Authorization Act in late October belies any claim of objection to the enhanced use of the military in general and war in particular.
Next year’s Pentagon budget is the largest, in both current and real U.S. dollars, since 1945, the last year of World War II. Although it contains $130 billion for the war in Afghanistan and the occupation of Iraq that previously would have been appropriated as separate supplemental funds, immediately after the signing of the Defense Department budget the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, stated “he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” [6] with the first request to be approximately $50 billion.
With the announcement on December 1 of another Afghan troop surge, the Pentagon’s requests for “emergency financing” can be expected to grow in both size and frequency. As with the claim of a troop withdrawal (or “drawdown”) by 2011, the alleged ending of war supplements is a public relations ploy and sleight of hand trick employed to beguile a gullible public.
Even in a world that over the last decade has been afflicted with such logical and moral affronts as humanitarian war and preemptive retaliation, awarding a peace prize to a war president represents a new nadir of cynical realpolitik and a flagrant endorsement of militarism, however well-disposed many may have been toward its most recent recipient.
1) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?aid=15622&context=va
2) New York Times, December 7, 2009
3) Azeri Press Agency, December 8, 2009
4) Civil Georgia, December 5, 2009
5) Rustavi2, December 4, 2009
6) Associated Press, November 1, 2009
Categories: Uncategorized 
U.S., NATO War In Afghanistan: Antecedents And Precedents
December 5, 2009 richardrozoff 2 comments 
Stop NATO
December 5, 2009
U.S., NATO War In Afghanistan: Antecedents And Precedents
Rick Rozoff 
———-
The U.S. (and Britain) began bombing the Afghan capital of Kabul on October 7, 2001 with Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from warships and submarines and bombs dropped from warplanes and shortly thereafter American special forces began ground operations, a task that has been conducted since by regular Army and Marine units. The bombing and the ground combat operations continue more than eight years later and both will be intensified to record levels in short order.
The combined U.S. and NATO forces would represent a staggering number, in excess of 150,000 soldiers. By way of comparison, as of September of this year there were approximately 120,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and only a small handful of other nations’ personnel, those assigned to the NATO Training Mission – Iraq, remaining with them.
“Secretary Gates has made clear that the conflicts we’re in should be at the very forefront of our agenda. He wants to make sure we’re not giving up capabilities needed now for those needed for some unknown future conflict. He wants to make sure the Pentagon is truly on war footing….For the first time in decades, the political and economic stars are aligned for a fundamental overhaul of the way the Pentagon does business.”
———-
Over the past ten years citizens of the United States and other Western nations, and unfortunately most of the world, have become accustomed to Washington and its military allies in Europe and those appointed as armed outposts on the periphery of the “Euro-Atlantic community” engaging in armed aggression around the world.
Wars against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq and lower profile military operations and surrogate campaigns in nations as diverse as Colombia, Yemen, the Philippines, Ivory Coast, Somalia, Chad, the Central African Republic, South Ossetia and elsewhere have become an unquestioned prerogative of the U.S. and its NATO partners. So much so that many have forgotten to consider how comparable actions have been or might be viewed if a non-Western nation attempted them.
Thirty years ago this December 24 the first Soviet troops entered Afghanistan to assist a neighboring nation’s government to combat an armed insurgency based in Pakistan and surreptitiously (later quite openly) supported by the United States.
In the waning days of that year, 1979, and in the early ones of the following Soviet troop strength grew to some 50,000 soldiers.
(In 1839 Britain invaded Afghanistan with 21,000 of its own and Indian colonial troops and in 1878 with twice that number to counter Russian influence in the country in what came to be called the Great Game.)
On January 23, 1980 U.S. President James Earl (Jimmy) Carter stated in his last State of the Union Address that “The implications of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan could pose the most serious threat to the peace since the Second World War.”
When the Soviet Union began withdrawing its forces from the nation – the first half from May 15 to August 16, 1988 and the last from November 15, 1988 to February 15, 1989 – their peak number had been slightly over 100,000.
On December 1 of 2009 U.S. President Barack Obama announced that he was deploying 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan in addition to the 68,000 already there and two days later “Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress…that the surge force of 30,000 going to Afghanistan will grow to at least 33,000 when support troops are included.” [1]
That is, over 100,000 troops. Along with private military and security contractors whose number is even larger.
Soviet troops were in Afghanistan barely over nine years. American troops are now involved in the ninth year of combat operations in the country and in less than four weeks will be engaged in their tenth calendar year of war there.
On November 25 White House spokesman Robert Gibbs assured the people of his nation that “We are in year nine of our efforts in Afghanistan. We are not going to be there another eight or nine years.” [2] The implication is that the U.S. may wage a war in Afghanistan that could last until 2017. For sixteen years.
The longest war in American history prior to the current one was that in Vietnam. U.S. military advisers were present in the country from the late 1950s onward and covert operations were carried on in the early 1960s, but only in the year after the contrived Gulf of Tonkin incident – 1965 – did the Pentagon begin major combat operations in the south and regular bombing raids in the north. The last American combat unit left South Vietnam in 1972, seven years later.
The U.S. (and Britain) began bombing the Afghan capital of Kabul on October 7, 2001 with Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from warships and submarines and bombs dropped from warplanes and shortly thereafter American special forces began ground operations, a task that has been conducted since by regular Army and Marine units. The bombing and the ground combat operations continue more than eight years later and both will be intensified to record levels in short order.
Since late last summer the U.S. and its NATO allies have launched regular drone missile and attack helicopter assaults inside Pakistan. Had the Soviets attempted to do likewise thirty years ago – when their own borders were threatened – Washington’s response might well have triggered a third world war.
The USSR did not deploy troops from any of its fellow Warsaw Pact nations in Afghanistan during the 1980s. In a historical irony that warrants more commentary that it has received – none – every one of those nations now has forces serving under NATO and killing and dying in the Afghan war theater: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and the former German Democratic Republic (subsumed under a united Federal Republic, which has almost 4,500 soldiers stationed there). 
They are among troops from close to 50 nations serving or soon to serve under NATO command on the Afghanistan-Pakistan war front, which include the following from the Alliance and several of its partnership programs:
NATO members:
Albania
Belgium
Britain
Bulgaria
Canada
Croatia
The Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
The Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Turkey
The United States (35,000 troops with as many more on the way)
Partnership for Peace/Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC):
Armenia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bosnia
Finland
Georgia
Ireland
Macedonia
Montenegro
Sweden
Switzerland (withdrawn last year)
Ukraine
Contact Countries:
Australia
Japan (naval forces)
New Zealand
South Korea
Adriatic Charter (overlaps with the Partnership for Peace):
Albania
Bosnia
Croatia
Macedonia
Montenegro
Istanbul Cooperation Initiative:
United Arab Emirates
Trilateral Afghanistan-Pakistan-NATO Military Commission:
Afghanistan
Pakistan 
Miscellaneous:
Colombia
Mongolia
Singapore
The above roster includes seven of fifteen former Soviet republics (another development worthy of consideration), with Moldova after this year’s “Twitter Revolution” and Kazakhstan, where in September the U.S. ambassador pressured the government for troops, candidates for deployments under Partnership for Peace obligations. (Both had earlier sent troops to Iraq.) Their participation would lead to 60% of former Soviet states having troops committed to NATO in Afghanistan. With Moldova added, every European nation (excluding microstates like Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City) except for Belarus, Cyprus, Malta, Russia and Serbia will have military forces serving under NATO in Afghanistan. 
Never in the history of world warfare have military contingents from so many nations – fifty or more – served in one war theater. In a single nation. Troops from five continents, Oceania and the Middle East. [3]
Even the putative coalition of the willing stitched together by the U.S. and Britain after the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003 and until troops were pulled for redeployment to Afghanistan only consisted of forces from thirty one nations: The U.S., Britain, Albania, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Japan, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand and Ukraine. Twenty two of those thirty one contributors were former Soviet bloc (Albania remotely) nations or former Yugoslav republics that had recently (1999) joined NATO or were being prepared for integration into or in other manners with the bloc.
The world’s last three major wars – those in and against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq – have been used as testing and training grounds for the expansion of global NATO.
The consolidation of an international rapid response (strike) force and occupation army under NATO control was further advanced this week with Obama’s troop surge speech on the 1st and follow-up efforts by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to recruit more allied troops at the recently concluded meeting of NATO (and allied) foreign ministers.
On December 4 “NATO’s top official said…that at least 25 countries will send a total of about 7,000 additional forces to Afghanistan next year ‘with more to come,’ as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to bolster allied resolve.” [4] In attendance at the NATO meeting in Brussels were also an unspecified number of foreign ministers of non-NATO nations providing troops for the Afghan war, top military commander of all U.S. and NATO forces General Stanley McChrystal and Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta.
7,000 more NATO troops with “more to come” would, added to some 42,000 non-U.S. soldiers currently serving with NATO and 35,000 U.S. forces doing the same, mean at least 85,000 troops under NATO command even without the 33,000 new U.S. troops headed to Afghanistan. The bloc’s largest foreign deployment before this was to Kosovo in 1999 when at its peak the Alliance-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) consisted of 50,000 troops from 39 nations. [5]
The combined U.S. and NATO forces would represent a staggering number, in excess of 150,000 soldiers. By way of comparison, as of September of this year there were approximately 120,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and only a small handful of other nations’ personnel, those assigned to the NATO Training Mission – Iraq, remaining with them.
Among NATO member states Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa recently announced an increase of 1,000 troops, bringing the nation’s total to almost 4,500, 50% more than had previously been stationed in Iraq.
Poland will send another 600-700 troops which, added to those already in Afghanistan, will constitute the largest aggregate Polish military deployment abroad in the post-Cold War era and the highest number of troops ever deployed outside Europe in the nation’s history.
Britain will provide another 500 troops, with its total rising to close to 10,000.
Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolay Mladenov said last week that “there is a strong possibility that the country will increase its military contingent in Afghanistan.” [6] To indicate the nature of the commitments new NATO member states shoulder when they join the Alliance and what their priority then becomes, three days earlier Mladenov, speaking of budgetary constraints placed on the armed forces because of the current financial crisis, affirmed that “We may cut down some other items of the army budget, but there will always be enough money for missions abroad.” [7]
Washington has also pressured Croatia, which became a full member of the bloc this past April, to supply more troops and Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor hastened to pledge that “Croatia, being a NATO member, would fulfill its obligations.” [8]
The Czech republic’s defense minister, Martin Bartak, spoke after the Obama troop surge speech earlier this week and threatened the Czech parliament by stating “it will have to be explained to allies why the Czech Republic does not want to take part in the reinforcements while Slovakia and Britain, for instance, will reinforce their contingents….” [9]
Slovakia has announced that it will more than double its forces in Afghanistan.
The German parliament has just renewed for another year the deployment of the nation’s almost 4,500 troops in Afghanistan, the maximum allowed by the Bundestag, although discussions are being held to increase that number to 7,000 after a conference on Afghanistan in London on January 28. German armed forces in the country are engaged in their nation’s first ground combat operations since World War II. 
A news report on December 3 said that U.S. ambassador to Turkey James Jeffrey was pressuring Ankara to provide a “specific number” of troops and to be “”more flexible” [10] in how they will be deployed, meaning that Turkey must drop so-called combat caveats and engage in active fighting along with its NATO allies. 
After meeting with U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden on December 4, Hungarian Prime Minister Gyorgy Gordon Bajnai vowed to send 200 more soldiers to the South Asian war zone, an increase of 60% as Hungary currently has 360 there. 
Regarding NATO partner states, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia Celeste Wallander was in Armenia to secure that nation’s first military deployment to Afghanistan, the handiwork of NATO’s first Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia Robert Simmons [11], who has also gained a doubling of troops from neighboring Azerbaijan and a pledge of as many as 1,000 Georgian troops by next year.
During a press conference at NATO headquarters on the first day of the Alliance’s recent Afghan war council, December 3, the bloc’s chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed gratitude to the United Arab Emirates for dispatching troops to Afghanistan and “hosting…the alliance’s International Conference on NATO-UAE Relations and the Way Forward in the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative last October.” [12]
The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative was launched at the NATO summit in Turkey in 2004 to upgrade military partnerships with members of the Mediterranean Dialogue (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates). [13]
A U.S. military news agency published an article on December 3 that discussed the Quadrennial Defense Review currently being deliberated on at the Pentagon. 
Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III, who before assuming that post was Vice President of Government Operations and Strategy for Raytheon, was quoted as boasting that “The Quadrennial Defense Review…will be unlike any other: the first to be driven by current wartime requirements, to balance conventional and nonconventional capabilities, and to embrace a ‘whole of government’ approach to national security….This is a landmark QDR.”
Lynn also said that “Secretary Gates has made clear that the conflicts we’re in should be at the very forefront of our agenda. He wants to make sure we’re not giving up capabilities needed now for those needed for some unknown future conflict. He wants to make sure the Pentagon is truly on war footing….For the first time in decades, the political and economic stars are aligned for a fundamental overhaul of the way the Pentagon does business.” [14]
The more than eight-year war in Afghanistan is not going to end in 2011, Obama’s asseverations notwithstanding, nor will it be the last of its kind. It will continue to engulf neighboring Pakistan with the threat of also spilling over into Central Asia and Iran.
The crisis confronting the world is not only the war in South Asia: It is war itself. More particularly, the recklessness of the self-proclaimed sole superpower and the military bloc it heads in arrogating to themselves the exclusive right to threaten nations around the world with military aggression.
If that policy is not brought to an end by the real international community – the more than six-sevenths of humanity outside the greater Euro-Atlantic world (as it deems itself) – Afghanistan will not be this century’s last war front but its first and prototypical one. Portents are of even worse to come.
1) New York Daily News, December 4, 2009
2) New York Times, November 26, 2009
3) Afghan War: NATO Builds History’s First Global Army
Stop NATO, August 9, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/afghan-war-nato-builds-historys-first-global-army
4) Associated Press, December 4, 2009
5) U.S., NATO Poised For Most Massive War In Afghanistan’s History
Stop NATO, September 24, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/u-s-nato-poised-for-most-massive-war-in-afghanistans-history
6) Sofia News Agency, November 26, 2009
7) Standart News, November 23, 2009
8) Xinhua News Agency, December 3, 2009
9) Czech News Agency, December 2, 2009
10) PanArmenian.net, December 3, 2009
11) Mr. Simmons’ Mission: NATO Bases From Balkans To Chinese Border
Stop NATO, March 4, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/mr-simmons-mission-nato-bases-from-balkans-to-chinese-border
12) Emirates News Agency, December 3, 2009
13) NATO In Persian Gulf: From Third World War To Istanbul
Stop NATO, February 6, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/nato-in-persian-gulf-from-third-world-war-to-istanbul
14) American Forces Press Service, December 3, 2009


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