Voice of Russia
June 9, 2013
NATO is antithetical to the spirit of the United Nations – Rozoff
AUDIO
Colombia may be on a list for membership in NATO further expanding what was originally a North Atlantic defense organization, into a global offensive military bloc, in effect taking over the world. Rick Rozoff spoke about this and more in an interview with the Voice of Russia.
Hello! This is John Robles. I’m speaking with Mr. Rick Rozoff the owner of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list.
Robles: Hello Rick. How are you?
Rozoff: Very good John. Thanks for having me on.
Robles: Can you give us a little bit of your insights into what is going on down there in Colombia? Now NATO seems to be expanding to South America as well?
Rozoff: Yes, I’m glad you raised that issue. It’s been in the news for the last 24 hours or so. And there have been disclaimers being issued already, particularly by the Colombian government, which I don’t believe wants to acknowledge it, but the story from Agence France-Presse, the French press service quoted some Assistant Secretary State for the State Department, one Roberta Jacobson, stating exactly, here’s the quote: “Our goal is certainly to support Columbia as being a capable and strong member of lots of different international organizations, and that might well include NATO.”
So, the reference was to Colombia, we’ll talk about this in a moment, but her phraseology certainly suggests that not only is Colombia being prepared as a partner for NATO, but conceivably at some point in the future it might be the first country outside of the Euro-Atlantic area or the North Atlantic Ocean area to become a member of NATO, according to her language. There’s been some backtracking on that since, particularly by the Colombian government.
But I think it is important to realize that the last chief military commander of NATO, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, James Stavridis, an American admiral, who prior to coming to that position as both the European Commander, the top military commander of NATO, was the top military commander for Southern Command, which takes in Latin America as a whole: Central America, South America and the Caribbean. And he had mentioned several months ago that Colombia might well be a Troop Contributing Nation, that’s an official designation by NATO, for the war in Afghanistan.
Though for several years now, John, there have been reports, fairly credible, that Colombia had already sent security personnel, as well as troops (regular army troops, counterinsurgency troops to be exact) to Afghanistan to serve under NATO, even if not officially. So, this is simply a consolidation or concretization of a relationship that’s been in the making for some time.
Robles: Isn’t there some problem with the international law or NATO’s own charter to just keep expanding like this?
Rozoff: With international law, no, unless somebody goes to the United Nations – I think it’s long overdue incidentally – and stipulates that no nation or group of nations has the right to form an offensive international military bloc that is waging war, legally or illegally, but certainly aggressively, in three continents over the last 14 years as we know, in Southeastern Europe, South Asia…
Robles: Wasn’t that one of the reasons that the United Nations itself was setup to prevent something like what happened with the Nazi Germany?
Rozoff: You’re exactly correct. Wars of aggression or settling border and other disputes between nations by military means was to have been banned. That was also the intent of the League of Nations after Would War I and the Kellogg-Briand Treaty and a number of other efforts.
So, in spirit, if not in direct letter of the United Nations Charter, of course, NATO is antithetical, is contrary to the very spirit, as you’re indicating, of why the United Nations was set up, and to trust NATO’s own charter, if in fact they are or ever were supposedly a defensive military alliance set up to defend nations in Western, and to some extent Southern, Europe against the perceived threat from Eastern Europe at that time, then we have to recollect that both the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union itself formally dissolved themselves in 1991, 22 years ago.
So, even if people more credulous than myself, I suppose, who believe that NATO has anything to do with being a defensive alliance up until 1991, surely cannot make that representation, that argument currently.
I think what is significant about Colombia is that although the nation of El Salvador is an official Troop Contributing Nation for the war in Afghanistan, with a small contingent serving under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Colombia, should it be made an official partner of NATO, becomes one on the sixth continent in which NATO will have members and partners.
Obviously, from its inception in both North America and Europe and subsequent to that there have been, in the Mediterranean Dialog for example, there are five partner states in North Africa. Libya is soon to be the sixth.
The story just broke yesterday where at a defense ministers’ meeting at NATO headquarters, Chuck Hagel, the US Defense Secretary, and other NATO defense secretaries were talking about NATO offering to train, which is to say build, the armed forces and other security personnel in Libya. So, at least six countries in Africa have, or will shortly have, partnerships with NATO. Same thing in Asia.
And of course Australia is a major NATO ally. It is the second largest non-NATO contributor of troops for the war in Afghanistan, Georgia has now superseded it as being the first.
So, you have a US-led military alliance that now has, with the inclusion of Colombia, as full members and partners in every inhabited continent, in every continent but Antarctica. I actually wrote, a year or more ago, that Colombia, when it joins a broader NATO network around the world, will do so under the aegis of the newest NATO program called, aptly enough, Partners Across the Globe.
Robles: You’ve predicted all kinds of stuff in the past.
You mentioned Libya a minute ago, what’s the situation right now in Libya? Because the last I heard, it was sinking into a state of anarchy and they were talking about moving in troops, to stabilize the country that was destroyed by their previous invasion.
Rozoff: That’s it, exactly. You know, a six-month-long NATO bombing campaign and naval blockade had its desired effect.
You are talking about the military of 28 countries altogether in NATO, representing almost a sixth of the human race with a combined military budget of over a trillion dollars a year taking on a small, practically defenseless nation, Libya in 2011, and waging a six-month-long so-called Operation Unified Protector.
The reason the NATO is now talking about training the security personnel inside Libya, much as it’s done already in Iraq and in Afghanistan, is because the country is devolved into an almost European 30 Years War sort of scenario, with rival gangs fighting each other, plundering the resources of the country, throwing the country, as you indicate, into turmoil. And it’s been going on for a good two years.
Robles: I remember way back when, I mean, people used to talk about nation building and advanced planning for after these invasions and stuff. They don’t do that anymore, do they? They just go in, take out the leader and who cares what happens afterwards, right?
Rozoff: Yes, you know, after me the deluge (Après moi, le déluge) or after me the catastrophe, and that’s in fact, that’s a good description of it John. That’s what the Balkans look like, that’s what Iraq looks like, Afghanistan and now Libya, and you know should the West have its way, that’s what Syria would look like, in sort order. You’d have gangs like Al Nusra and others running rampant, running riot throughout the country, and throwing it into complete chaos and pandemonium…
You were listening to an interview in progress with Rick Rozoff the owner and manager of the stop NATO website and international mailing list. Thanks for listening and we wish you the best.\
You can find part 2 on our website at english.ruvr.ru
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