Maybe you've received an e-mail. Maybe read about it in the
People's Voice. If not, you know about it now.
NATO is turning 60 this year and already had its midlife crisis after the Cold War. It has been around for too long.
Here is an announcement of demonstrations from the Canadian Peace Alliance
Demonstrate on April 4, 2009Canada and NATO out of AfghanistanWorldwide demonstrations during the NATO SummitThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will mark its 60th
anniversary on April 4 and 5, 2009. At the same time, demonstrations
will take place all over the world calling for an end to NATO’s war in
Afghanistan. The Canadian Peace Alliance and the Collectif Échec à la
guerre are calling for pan-Canadian demonstrations on April 4 to
demand an end to the NATO-led occupation that has already killed
thousands of Afghan civilians and threatens to bring war to the entire
region.
After more than seven years of occupation, there is still no end in
sight to the killing in Afghanistan. Following the advice of US
General David Petraeus, the new Obama administration has agreed to an
Iraq-style “surge” in Afghanistan. The plan is to send an additional
30,000 US troops. The US also wants to buy the support of Afghan
militias by arming and paying them to fight on the side of the NATO
occupation forces. There is widespread fear that such a move will
increase tensions between ethnic groups and further destabilize the
country.
In addition, the war in Afghanistan has already expanded into
Pakistan, with an increase in US-led strikes in the border areas. The
spread of war threatens to create massive social and political
instability in a nuclear-armed nation.
NATO is a relic of the Cold War. It has tried to reinvent itself in
the years since, and has now become a military alliance that
aggressively pursues the interests of its member countries,
principally the United States, in areas far beyond the North Atlantic.
In doing so, NATO is creating and stoking conflict. The proposed
expansion of NATO membership to the Ukraine and Georgia, and NATO
support for a “Missile Defense” plan in Eastern Europe, are fuelling a
new arms race—and increasing the danger that Canada will be involved
in other NATO conflicts.
Even more worrying, NATO maintains its policy of pre-emptive
first-strike using nuclear weapons, a policy that encourages nuclear
proliferation, and heightens the prospect of nuclear war.
NATO members account for at least 75 per cent of global military
expenditures, allocating $1 trillion a year to military spending. In
Canada, both Liberal and Conservative governments have invoked “our
NATO commitment” in Afghanistan as justification for skyrocketing
military expenses, now earmarked at $490 billion over the next 20
years. Canada—like other NATO members including the United Kingdom,
Germany, France, and Italy—continues to support NATO’s war in
Afghanistan against the peoples will. On March 13, 2008—just three
weeks before a NATO Summit—Parliament voted to extend Canada’s mission
in Afghanistan to July 2011. Polls showed that 58 per cent of
Canadians opposed the extension.
Real security and prosperity will only be possible in Afghanistan when
Western governments end their support for NATO’s war. NATO members
must be accountable to their own populations, and not to NATO
generals.
Join us on April 4 to demand the withdrawal of Canadian troops from
Afghanistan, and an end to NATO’s war.
