Condemn the Warmongering NATO Summit!
Britain out of NATO!

Opposition is mounting to the warmongering North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit being held at Celtic Manor in Newport, Wales from 4-5 September. The government has been forced to erect a 12-mile “ring of steel” around the summit, and garrison 10,000 police in Wales in order to secure the warmongers’ protection from the justifiable anger of the people and to attempt to prevent the people’s opposition and create a climate of fear and intimidation.

The government must be condemned for its continued membership of such a criminal organisation and for hosting its summit, the first in two years, which is expected to attract over 150 heads of state and ministers from some 60 countries, including US President Barack Obama. The summit, said to be the largest ever gathering of political leaders in Britain’s history, is being held at a time when the criminal military intervention carried out by NATO in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere has plunged the world into a state of unprecedented instability and turmoil. NATO’s criminal activity, in contention with its rivals, has caused the loss of millions of lives, and created levels of devastation, violence and anarchy in some regions that seem likely to engulf the world in new wars, a situation used as the pretext for further NATO military intervention.

Nato Summit is being held at the Celtic
Manor Resort Hotel, Newport The example of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia 15 years ago, of which Tony Blair was an enthusiastic champion, demonstrates the aggressive character of NATO and its use as tool of domination. It is a huge irony that Blair himself described this aggression as necessary to avert what would otherwise have been “a humanitarian disaster”. The warning of the nature of NATO plans for Ukraine is very clear.

As if to highlight the warmongering aims of the aggressive US-led NATO alliance, ahead of the summit the organisation has held emergency meetings to discuss what further pressure it can bring to bear on Russia, following tendentious allegations that Russian armed forces have “invaded” the east of Ukraine and are responsible for the current conflict there. President Obama has threateningly reiterated that NATO will provide “unwavering” support for all its members, that the summit will discuss how it can prepare itself for any challenge from Russia, and
that NATO will strengthen its so-called “co-operation” and “working together” with the Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen went even further claiming that NATO’s “response force” was in readiness, that NATO was assisting with the modernisation of Ukraine’s army and that is was seeking additional bases in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Prime Minister has provocatively announced that his government will seek to end the country’s “non-bloc” status and seek membership of NATO.

NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, which is already being championed by the government of Poland, is in direct contravention of the 1997 NATO-Russia Act. Prime Minister Cameron has
already called for a “review” of NATO’s relationship with Russia and it appears that this NATO summit, using the pretext of the Ukraine crisis, may well be used to overcome opposition within NATO, particularly from Germany, and alter the facts on the ground.

Successive British governments have demonstrated their slavish support for the US-dominated NATO and in this regard Cameron’s government is no different. The current government should be condemned for its sabre-rattling in regard to Russia and warmongering demands for NATO expansion in Eastern Europe. The government is also intending to use the summit to demand increased funding for NATO, for a commitment to maintain NATO intervention in Afghanistan so as to consolidate the creation of a proxy state there, as well as in Georgia and elsewhere. Indeed Cameron is urging a strengthening of NATO’s global partnerships in order to further the interventionist aims of Britain, the US and their allies.

Far from being a factor for global peace and stability or a basis for economic growth, NATO remains an alliance for war and instability, an unnecessary drain on the economies of Britain and other countries in which the majority of people have no decision-making powers.

The aim of the United States in consolidating NATO is clearly to secure its domination, not only through Eastern Europe to Asia, but also to Africa and not least in the whole of North America itself. The big powers of Europe, for their part, have been themselves concentrating power in the Europe of the monopolies, and see their participation in NATO also from this perspective. Altogether, the aim of the participants in NATO is to build that force which is moulded to carry out
aggression as required on a co-ordinated and swift basis anywhere in the world. However, the incoherence of the plans and the contention between Europe and the US present problems. As the briefing of the British government says, it is an “unpredictable world”. When the talk is of “building stability” in this world, then the issue for NATO is to impose neo-liberalism and fascism through force of arms. This scenario does not come cheap, and it is evident that one of the main emphases in the summit is going to be that the US is urging the European participants to shoulder more of the bill. As the US National Security Advisor Susan Rice is quoted as saying, “Europe needs to take defence spending seriously and meet NATO’s benchmark.”

The times cry out for mounting opposition to the warmongering NATO. Britain’s membership must be ended. The working class and people should also be vigilant about what the British state is planning at home as a corollary to the summit, bearing in mind that in 2005 when the G8 leaders met in Gleneagles, Scotland, the 7/7 bombings were carried out in London, with all the hallmarks of a state-organised outrage to deflect attention from the people’s opposition to these leaders of the capitalist world.

All peace-loving people must step up their efforts to stay the hands of the warmongers in Ukraine, to end Britain’s intervention throughout the world and create the conditions for establishing an anti-war government.

Down with the warmongering NATO alliance!
Britain Out of NATO!
Fight for an Anti-War Government!