NATO Is a Warfare Alliance, Not a Force for Global Peace

View as Webpage

DEMOCRATIC WORLD FEDERALISTS

PEACEFUL | JUST | SUSTAINABLE | WORLD

July 20, 2023

Articles for This Issue:

DWF NEWS

July 20, 2023

ICC afraid to prosecute leaders from the West responsible for world crimes

From ICC to ‘Sportswashing’: West’s Self-Serving Narratives Must Be Combated

Ramzy Baroud

UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine

Israel Has Turned All of Palestine Into 'An Open-Air Prison' to Further Annexation Plans

Jeff Wright

NATO Is a Warfare Alliance, Not a Force for Global Peace or Stability

Medea Benjamin and Marcy Winograd

Arrogantly ignoring international law

Inscrutable Sanctions

Erik Mar and John Perry

British Intelligence in the Dock for CIA Torture

Kit Klarenberg The Grayzone

ICC Afraid to Prosecute Leaders from the West Responsible for World Crimes

From ICC to ‘Sportswashing’: West’s Self-Serving Narratives Must Be Combated

Ramzy Baroud

EXCERPTS

In the 21 years of its existence, “the ICC has not issued a single warrant of arrest for or prosecuted any United States or European president, prime minister or monarch as head of state,” protested Africa’s oldest communist party, echoing the cries of numerous organizations, politicians, and activists who, for years, pointed out that Africa has received the lion’s share of ICC investigations and arrest warrants.

While Palestinians immediately, and rightly, protested the hypocrisy of the ICC as it continues to treat alleged Israeli war criminals with kid gloves, Iraqis, Afghans, but mostly African activists and intellectuals found the ICC’s moral inconsistency reprehensible.

UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine

Israel Has Turned All of Palestine Into 'An Open-Air Prison' to Further Annexation Plans

Jeff Wright

Francesca Albanese's June report to the UN Human Rights Council says Israel uses physical, bureaucratic, military, and surveillance means to "de-Palestinianize" the occupied territory, threatening "the existence of the Palestinians as a people."

NATO Is a Warfare Alliance, Not a Force for Global Peace or Stability

Medea Benjamin and Marcy Winograd

NATO has pushed the world towards greater militarization precisely at this delicate moment in history when we need to invest our resources in thwarting the climate crisis that threatens the future of this planet with collapsing ecosystems, wildfires, and floods. Moreover, the tens of billions of dollars spent to continue the Russia-Ukraine war could be invested in alleviating global poverty that affects the daily well-being of millions of families worldwide.

Once again, we see that NATO’s modus operandi is war. NATO has never been a defensive alliance. It invaded Yugoslavia in 1999 without a mandate from the UN Security Council. NATO waged a 20-year war in Afghanistan, leaving the people dirt poor and back in the hands of the Taliban. NATO illegally toppled the government of Libya in 2011. In addition to the present war with Russia, it has its sights set on China, building up a provocative Asia-Pacific military alliance with South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand to counter China. NATO is also a cash cow for arms manufacturers, and it is the enemy of nuclear disarmament in its opposition to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Arrogantly ignoring international law

Inscrutable Sanctions

Erik Mar and John Perry

The U.K., along with the U.S. and Canadian governments and the European Union, has created a sanctions regime targeting around 40 countries across the globe.

While economic sanctions against states are best known, they also include thousands of individuals whose assets have been frozen or confiscated, their travel restricted, and their ability to do business constrained.

Typically, names are added to a government’s sanctions lists with no prior warning or “due process.” The individuals affected are in practice unable to challenge their inclusion since it would require expensive legal action in different countries with an uncertain chance of success.

There is a growing body of opinion, reflected in the work of those such as the Sanctions Kill campaign, that these “unilateral coercive measures” are illegal in international law if they affect the enjoyment of human rights, such as freedom from hunger or access to health care, in the countries targeted.

British Intelligence in the Dock for CIA Torture

Kit Klarenberg

EXCERPTS

11 Jul 2023 – Britain’s foreign and domestic intelligence apparatus is facing scrutiny by a tribunal tasked with intelligence oversight. On May 26, London’s infamously opaque Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) unanimously issued a landmark ruling which means the complaints of two Saudis brutally tortured at CIA black sites and jailed for years in Guantanamo Bay can finally be heard, at least behind closed doors.

Noting that “the underlying issues raised by this complaint are of the gravest possible kind,” the tribunal declared that “if the allegations are true, it is imperative that that should be established,” as “it would be in the public interest for these issues to be considered.”

Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times, locked in a tiny coffin-like box for hundreds of hours, with cockroaches – of which he had a lifelong fear – hung from hooks, denied sleep, and forced to remain in “stress positions” for extended periods. Having lost an eye as a result of this abuse, he now has permanent brain damage, suffers constant seizures, virtually perpetual headaches, and an “excruciating sensitivity to sounds.”