Text Fwd: U.S. And NATO Allies Escalate Military Buildup Against Iran 미국과 나토 동맹국들, 이란에 대항해 군사 증강 증대

* Text sent from Rock Rozoff on Dec. 6, 2010

Stop NATO

Rick Rozoff blog
U.S. And NATO Allies Escalate Military Buildup Against Iran
Rick Rozoff
December 6, 2010

The new Strategic Concept adopted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization at its summit in Lisbon, Portugal on November 19-20 reiterated the U.S.-led military bloc's determination to expand military partnerships and deployments throughout the so-called Greater Middle East, including in the Persian Gulf. [1]

The Alliance's doctrine for the next decade contains the assertion that "we attach great importance to peace and stability in the Gulf region, and we intend to strengthen our cooperation in the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative,” [2] the reference being to the decision reached at the bloc's 2004 summit in Turkey to upgrade partnerships with the seven members of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue program - Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia - and the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - to the status of the Partnership for Peace program used to graduate 12 Eastern European nations to full NATO membership over the last 11 years.

Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have formally responded to the initiative by forging bilateral relations with NATO, and Oman and Saudi Arabia have cooperated with the military alliance in ad hoc endeavors ranging from conferences to hosting visits of NATO naval groups. [3]

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is also one of NATO's 48 Troop Contributing Nations for the war in Afghanistan and provides air bases to NATO member states for the war in that country. Until recently Canadian aircraft and troops operated out of Camp Mirage in Dubai, reportedly at the Al Minhad Air Base, where Dutch, Australian and New Zealand military forces have also been based for the Afghan war and operations in the Arabian Sea.

Britain also employs the Al Minhad Air Base as a "final hopping point" for transport planes to "carry troops and supplies to Afghanistan." In addition, the base supplies logistical support to British warships in the Persian Gulf. In the words of a British military official, "It's the right distance from the UK and the right distance from Afghanistan, in a safe country." [4]

As is evident by the location of the 13 nations targeted by the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, from Mauritania on the west coast of Africa to the monarchies and sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf, NATO is complementing and reinforcing U.S. military objectives and deployments from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. There is a NATO overlay to the Pentagon's Africa Command and Central Command, converging in Egypt, the only African nation still in the second command which reaches to the Chinese and Russian borders in Kazakhstan to the east.

The USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Harry S. Truman nuclear-powered supercarrier strike groups are currently in the Arabian Sea along with the only non-American nuclear aircraft carrier in the world, France's Charles de Gaulle [5], conducting operations from the Horn of Africa to Afghanistan.

Over 150,000 troops under U.S. and NATO command are waging war in Afghanistan, including in the provinces of Herat, Farah and Nimroz on Iran's eastern border.

In 2004 NATO airlifted Afghan government troops loyal to President Hamid Karzai to Herat province to depose the province's governor, Ismail Khan, whose son was killed in the process, and seize the Shindand Air Base, 20 miles from the Iranian border.

Earlier this year the Pentagon announced plans to spend $131 million to upgrade the air base. As a press report last May put it, the expansion and modernization of the base is occurring "as the U.S. works to strengthen the militaries and missile defenses of allies in the region and presses at the United Nations for a new round of sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to curb its nuclear program." [6]

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Text Fwd: Lisbon: Police Arrest 42 Anti-NATO Protesters 리스본 경찰, 42 나토반대자들 체포

Stop NATO

Reuters
November 20, 2010
Police detain 40 anti-NATO protesters in Lisbon

LISBON: Portuguese police detained 42 anti-NATO protesters who blocked a road near the military alliance's summit venue in Lisbon on Saturday.

"They are detained for identification. It was an action of civil disobedience. they were blocking an avenue leading toward the venue. There was no violence," a police spokesman said.

Security was tight for the two-day NATO summit and protests by Saturday afternoon were peaceful and small.

Campaigners from Portugal, other European countries and Canada said in a statement: "We are using civil disobedience to highlight the violence committed by NATO in Afghanistan. They are meeting here today to perfect their arsenal of destruction."

Security forces have also barred more than 200 people from entering Portugal since Tuesday, when they revived border checks on the frontier with EU partner Spain for the first time since 2004 to prevent violence during the summit.

In April 2009, hundreds of youths rioted in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, setting fire to buildings as NATO marked its 60th anniversary.

Peace groups planned a peaceful anti-summit rally in central Lisbon later on Saturday.

(Reporting by Andrei Khalip; editing by Ralph Boulton)
===========================
Stop NATO
Blog site

Text Fwd: NATO Meeting to Expand Missile Offense Systems 나토 회담, 미사일 공격 시스템 확장할 것임

* Text sent from Bruce Gagnon on Nov. 19, 2010

NTI
NATO Won't Cite Iran in Missile Defense Plan
Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010

NATO this week does not intend to explicitly make the connection between its proposed missile shield and fears of an Iranian missile strike, alliance head Anders Fogh Rasmussen told the Financial Times (see GSN, Nov. 16).

The move is intended to win the support of Turkey, which could host part of the system and which has voiced strong reservations against singling out its neighbor.

"We do not want to single out particular countries," Rasmussen said. "More than 30 countries already have -- or are aspiring to acquire -- missile technologies with a range that can hit NATO territory. So there is no need to single out or name specific countries, because this is an evolving threat."

Leaders from the 28 NATO nations are meeting tomorrow and Saturday in Lisbon, Portugal, to consider a new mission statement that would address strategies for dealing with modern-day security challenges. The heads of state are anticipated to determine whether to officially include missile defense among NATO objectives, paving the way for an initiative to integrate and augment the protective systems of member states.

An Obama administration plan to gradually field land- and sea-based missile interceptors around Europe would be incorporated into NATO missile defense plans. A draft of the organization's new mission statement reportedly calls for shield infrastructure to be deployed in Romania, Poland and Turkey.

Even if Tehran is not specifically identified as a missile threat, Ankara might still oppose allowing a radar base to be located on its soil while giving its backing to missile defense as a core NATO objective, alliance diplomats said. That could require further talks down the line (James Blitz, Financial Times, Nov. 17).

Ankara wants the missile shield's command-and-control architecture to be established on Turkish soil, Politico reported today.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week if command-and-control was not located in Turkey then it would be impossible for his government to agree to host the radar base.

Obama administration officials, however, do not want wish to see foreign nations hosting the command infrastructure. They anticipate instead it would be situated at U.S. military installations in Germany.

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Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)

Text Fwd: [Rock Rozoff] Lisbon: NATO To Retain Nuclear Arms, Build Missile Shield In Europe 나토, 핵무기 보유, 유럽에 미사일 방어 지을 것임

* Image & caption source: same as the link

NATO, Partnership for Peace and Mediterranean Dialogue members

* Image & caption source: same as the link

Meeting of the Tripartite Commission

* Rick Rozoff sent on Nov. 11, 2010

Rick Rozoff blog or Stop NATO
Lisbon Summit: NATO To Retain Nuclear Arms, Build Missile Shield In Europe
Rick Rozoff
November 10, 2010

In little more than a week the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will convene a two-day summit in Lisbon, Portugal with the heads of state and government (presidents and prime ministers) of its 28 member states.

At the summit the world's only military bloc will endorse its new Strategic Concept, the first since 1999 and as such the first for the 21st century, a doctrine which will formalize NATO's role as an international military-security-political force and a rival to the United Nations in that regard.

The main items on NATO's Lisbon agenda will be the war in Afghanistan, the Alliance's first armed conflict outside Europe and the first ground combat operations in its history; the launching of a continent-wide interceptor missile system subsumed under U.S. global missile shield auspices; an analogous cyber warfare operation building upon initiatives like NATO's cyber defense center in Estonia and subordinated to the Pentagon's new Cyber Command; the retention of hundreds of American nuclear bombs on air bases in five European nations; a multiplication of new roles and missions from patrolling strategic sea lanes with warships to guarding NATO member states' energy interests in any - in every - part of the world.

As an illustration of the ever-broadening scope of the U.S.-dominated military alliance, in regard to the Afghan war in particular, where there are currently 140,000 troops from the U.S. and almost 50 other nations assigned to NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), leaders of various NATO partnership nations will also attend the Lisbon summit.

They could include participants from NATO's Partnership for Peace program in Europe and Asia: Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia, Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

The Mediterranean Dialogue in Africa and the Middle East: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.

The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative in the Persian Gulf: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Contact Country allies in East Asia and the South Pacific: Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

The NATO-Russia Council: President Dmitry Medvedev will be the first Russian head of state to attend a NATO summit.

The military commanders' Tripartite Commission of NATO, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Official Troop Contributing Nations (TNC) for NATO's ISAF not in any of the above categories: Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore and Tonga. Colombia has also pledged troops for ISAF and nations like Bangladesh are being pressured to do the same.

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===========================
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Blog site

Event Fwd: PEACE YES, NATO NO! Lisbon, November 19th -20th; 포루투칼 리스본에서 11월 19~20일 나토 반대 행사

Stop NATO, Nov. 4, 2010

From: Zika Jovanovic
Subject: PEACE YES, NATO NO! Lisbon, November 19th -20th

I would like to draw your attention to the anti-NATO activities organized jointly by the Council for Peace and Cooperation of Portugal (CPPC) and the World Peace Council (WPC) which will be taking place in Lisbon 19/20th of November 2010.

These activities are being actively supported by 107 organizations of Portugal (civic associations, trade unions, political parties, parliamentarians, intellectuals) and will be carried out under the banner PEACE YES, NATO NO!

I am sure that you are aware that CPPC and WPC have long history of promoting peace, solidarity and cooperation and of strongly opposing to wars, foreign military bases and imperialism in general. Naturally, these organizations have been condemning 1999 NATO aggression against Serbia (FRY) from the very beginning as a crime against peace.

The Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals and some other independent associations from Serbia, intend to participate in CPPC/WPC activities in Lisbon.

Detailed information of CPPC/WPC activities could be found on www.pazsimnatono.org, as well as at www.cppc.pt.

With best wishes,

Zivadin Zika Jovanovic
===========================
Stop NATO

__________________________________________________
* Related blog 관련 블로그

Saturday, October 30, 2010
Text Fwd: Counter-NATO Summit, No to NATO – no to War”
[포루투칼 리스본] 나토 반대-전쟁 반대 회의 및 항의 11.19~21

Monday, November 1, 2010
Video Fwd: NATO SUMMIT PROTESTS PLANNED
[비디오 포워드] 나토 정상 회담 반대 시위 계획중

Sunday, October 31, 2010
Text Fwd: Pentagon Forges NATO Proxy Armies In Eastern Europe
미국방부, 동유럽에서 대리 군대 날조

Video Fwd: NATO SUMMIT PROTESTS PLANNED 나토 정상 회담 반대 시위 계획중

Bruce Gagnon blog
Monday, November 01, 2010
NATO SUMMIT PROTESTS PLANNED



November 19-21 there will be protests against the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal.

Of particular importance at this summit will be the issue of "missile offense" spreading throughout Europe - especially expanding eastward to surround Russia. This move by the U.S., and its NATO lackies, is intended to box Russia in so the oil majors can control distribution of oil and natural gas in the years ahead. Russia sits on the world's biggest supply of natural gas and significant supplies of oil. In addition, the oil corporations don't want to see the Caspian Sea pipelines being routed through Russia.

Missile offense systems are key elements in U.S. first-strike attack planning. As they spread they are becoming triggers for war with Russia and China.

The man on the left in the video is Dave Webb who was recently elected national chair of the UK's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He is also the chair of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.

Text Fwd: Pentagon Forges NATO Proxy Armies In Eastern Europe 미국방부, 동유럽에서 대리 군대 날조

* Image source: same as the link.
To see more images with the text, click the link.

* Text sent by Rick Rozoff on Oct. 30, 2010

StopNATO blog
Pentagon Forges NATO Proxy Armies In Eastern Europe
Rick Rozoff
October 30, 2010


On November 19 and 20 the leaders of 28 North American and European nations, all the major Western military powers and their vassals, will gather in the capital of Portugal for this year’s summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Until recently held every other year, NATO summits are now annual events, with the last held in France and Germany in 2009 and the preceding one in Romania in 2008.

Prior to last year’s summit in Strasbourg and Kehl, the first held in two nations, four in a row had occurred in Eastern Europe: The Czech Republic in 2002, Turkey in 2004, Latvia in 2006 and Romania in 2008. None of those host countries, of course, are anywhere near the North Atlantic Ocean. Neither are any of the 12 nations incorporated into the Western military bloc in the past 11 years.

This year’s summit will endorse the Alliance’s first Strategic Concept for the 21st century, a draft of which was crafted by a so-called group of experts led by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and presented in a report entitled NATO 2020: Assured Security; Dynamic Engagement.

Despite NATO referring to itself as a “military alliance of democratic states in Europe and North America” and claiming that all its members’ opinions carry equal weight – as though Luxembourg and Iceland could block or override the U.S., the world’s sole military superpower as its current head of state proudly christened it last December – next month’s summit will be a rubber stamp affair.

Everything the Pentagon and White House demand will be granted, most notably:

The subordination of NATO’s theater interceptor missile initiative, the Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence Programme launched in 2005, and the U.S.-German-Italian Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) to a U.S. missile shield structure throughout all of Europe and into the Middle East.

The retention of at least 200 U.S. nuclear bombs on air bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

A complementary cyber warfare “dome” over the European continent directed by the new U.S. Cyber Command. [1]

The qualitatively accelerated military integration of NATO and the European Union in the aftermath of the Lisbon Treaty entering into force last December 1. A Portuguese adviser to President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso recently affirmed “that the best solution for the enhancement of EU-U.S. relations would be that the European Union (EU) joins NATO.” [2]

The continuation of both components of what are frequently (and artificially) presented as being contradictory: NATO’s founding and core mission – the collective military defense of its member states – and its constantly expanding missions far outside the Euro-Atlantic region, with the war in Afghanistan the prototype and standard of the second.

The Lisbon summit will formalize and extend what has been underway in earnest since NATO’s first war in 1999: The projection of the U.S.-dominated military alliance into an international intervention and occupation force. One that is moving steadily to the east and south of the European continent, which has been unified under NATO and will soon be subsumed under American missile and cyber warfare systems.

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Text Fwd: Counter-NATO Summit, No to NATO – no to War” [포루투칼 리스본] 나토 반대-전쟁 반대 회의 및 항의 11.19~21

StopNATO
Fwd: Counter-NATO Summit
Thu Oct 28, 2010

In This Issue:

Friends,

Although NATO and the hundreds of military bases and installations that the U.S. continues to maintain across Europe have long played critical roles in maintaining U.S. “full spectrum dominance”, too few of us in the U.S. know much about NATO or have found ways to make common cause with European peace movements.

Here are your opportunities:

President Obama will be traveling to Lisbon, Portugal for the NATO summit November 19-21. A new doctrine is scheduled to be promulgated there, with the essential purpose of reinforcing the U.S. military presence and it influence in what Zbigniew Brzezinski called its “vassal states.”

As you can read below, the No to NATO – no to War coalition has organized a counter summit Nov. 19 and 21, and will be joining a nonviolent protest demonstration on Saturday the 20th.

LIVE STREAMING: You can join us. If your schedule and bank balance will keep you from joining us in person, come to www.no-to-nato.org, where you can join via live streaming. Proceedings of the counter-Summit will be broadcast from Friday the 19th from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Portugal time (6 hour time difference from New York.) They’ll be broadcast from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the 21st.

The updated agenda can be found at: www.no-to-nato.org.

Analysis and additional information follow below.

For peace,

Joseph Gerson
American Friends Service Committee
_______________________________________________________

The “countdown“ to our anti-war activities has begun
five weeks prior to the NATO summit

Dear colleagues,

An eventful peace-weekend lies behind us: a particularly successful action conference of our network “No to NATO – no to War” paired with a contextual conference opened the last stage of preparations of our protests against the new NATO strategy.

Again and again the conference contributions pointed out focal points of the new NATO strategy that are enumerated below:

1. NATO insists on nuclear weapons as absolute necessity for the politics of deterrence. Nuclear weapons are to be continuously deployed and modernized, the British Trident Fleet Ballistic Missiles as well as the American strategic nuclear weapons. All plans concerning the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Europe and the abandonment of nuclear sharing are cancelled.

2. The essence of the new NATO doctrine is the takeover of US plans concerning an American missile defense as a central NATO project. Europe is to be protected by an antiballistic missile defense shield. This is said to be the only way to realize the concept of deterrence and security in the 21st century.

3. The war in Afghanistan is seen as the topical challenge of NATO and shall be continued with reinforced efforts of civil-military cross-linkages until the war is won.

4. All member states are asked to intensify their defense mechanisms and to render them more effective.

5. Although NATO does not perceive itself to police the world, it does understand itself as an interventional force if its member states’ “interests” (worldwide, but particularly within the European-Asian area) are endangered. These interests explicitly include the protection of the member states’ “natural resources” and trade routes.

6. Another aim is the Eastern expansion of NATO – yet not as distinctly phrased as in previous official documents. The Eastern expansion shall include new partnership alliances with the former Southern Soviet republics as well as Indonesia and Malaysia, and also Australia and New Zealand. Japan is to be integrated in an innovative partnership.

7. According to the new strategy paper, EU-Europe is seen as partner and second pillar of NATO with a military alliance of its own, with which a “burden sharing”, a division of tasks and duties, is envisaged. This involves a significant revaluation of the EU military and defense policy as laid down in the Lisbon Treaty.

8. The need to reinforce electronical warfare is emphasized, regarding both NATO’s own action and recruitment realm and the scope of response to attacks directed at computers, communications- and power networks. The so-called “cyber war” usually includes the depletion of democratic civil rights and a further militarization of research (as regards security related topics).

9. Furthermore, the strategy paper highlights the “new” role of NATO, which shall manifest itself inter alia in the fight against global warming and other global challenges. The “security” against the consequences of climate change (migration flows) is to be ensured militarily.

10. All these challenges are classified as part of the “war against terrorism”. This war is among other things exploited for the feigned legitimation of global interventional operations of NATO.

Anti-war activities during the NATO summit

The international network “No to War – No to NATO”, which comprises more than 650 organizations since the protest actions against the NATO summit in Strasbourg 2009, already agreed on its annual conference in October 2009 to enforce its endeavors of using NATO summits as platforms of protest against war and militarism.

Since then, we intensely prepared our anti-war activities.

In Portugal, a national coalition named “PAGAN” has congregated. PAGAN is a Portuguese diverse alliance against NATO and in favor of NATO’s abolition that was founded two years ago. It comprises individuals from various organizations engaged in the promotion of peace such as Pax Christi, but also environmentalism and human rights organizations, student and youth organizations, as well as former officers of the Portuguese Revolution from 1974 and individuals from leftist parties such as “Blocco” (comparable with the Left Party in Germany). It is a truly broad, pluralist network, which is unified in its refusal of NATO and its politics of war.

The action conference on the 16th / 17th October 2010 in Lisbon has amended and finalized the course of action for the NATO counter summit in November 2010:

1. Regional and local operations from 15th until 21st November 2010. As a central meeting point for activists and interested individuals we will install a “Square of Peace” in the proximity of the NATO counter summit, including information desks, creative actions and musical/artistic contributions for a world without war and violence.

2. A counter summit on Friday, 19th Nov., on the morning of 20th November with a public event in the city and as concluding event on Sunday, 21st November an “International anti-war Assembly”. The centerpiece of the congress is the refusal of NATO and its martial strategy, including an analytical analysis of the strategy paper. We would like to elaborately discuss peaceful alternatives. There will be presentations of peace initiative actions and arrangements for further intensive international cooperation on the subject. Furthermore, considerable time for discussion is envisaged concentrating on differing positions: we strive to learn from each other in order to act more effective in the future. On Saturday, 21st Nov. 2010, there will be a public event on a central square in Lisbon with international representatives of peace- and other social movements and politics. The event focuses on various aspects of peace and war and includes the discussion of approaches of political solutions.

3. The support of a big peaceful international demonstration on Saturday, 20th Nov. in Lisbon.

4. Actions of civil disobedience which will be intensely prepared.

5. For the first time a web live-stream during the time period from 19th until 21st Nov. 2010 with live coverage from both conference days (for further information please consult the attachment). Our actions will be broadcasted worldwide so that every individual has the opportunity to at least indirectly participate in the events in Lisbon. This is how the protest can be carried into every peace initiative.

The international meeting in Lisbon was held in a very positive atmosphere. The preparations of the scheduled anti-war activities are mostly completed! Further steps of preparation are now to happen in the individual countries. This includes first and foremost to announce the new NATO strategy and to emphasize that it is a war- and arms strategy.

The best protest against this strategy is to participate in the anti-NATO activities in Lisbon. Please promote the greatest possible appearance at the Lisbon activities within your respective organizations. The more participating countries, the more attendees, the bigger will be the public attention for our protests.

Please get registered now!!! for the counter summit. This protest as well has to be organized in advance, therefore it is important to get registered in time.
The chances to demonstrate in good publicity and emphatically for peace and disarmament are given now in Lisbon – particularly due to the great work of our colleagues on site. What we will make of it is now in our hands and in the hands of each individual in his or her organization.

Please mobilize against war! Follow us to Lisbon! It is in your hands to work against NATO and for peace.

Hoping to personally meet many of you soon, we remain
with peaceful greetings,

Arielle Denis
Lucas Wirl
Reiner Braun.