HASH FACTS

NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, held its summit this year in Chicago on May 20-21. NATO presents itself, and is portrayed in the major media of this country and countries it is allied with, as a force for “humanitarian interests.” On its website, NATO claims to be a “leading contributor to peace and security on the international stage.” This benign self image is a vicious lie and masquerade that influences the thinking of far too many people in the U.S. and around the world. In reality, NATO is the world’s largest military alliance. Its 28 countries account for 65% of the world’s military spending, and far and away the largest of these is the United States. NATO exists to use the most advanced weaponry in the world in service of the interests of the big capitalist-imperialist powers of North America and Europe, above all the U.S. Most of this weaponry, especially in recent years, has been used not against similarly equipped opponents, but against defenceless civilian populations who they characterize as “terrorists.”
In the 60 years of its existence, the year 2011 was NATO’s “busiest year ever for military operations.” NATO maintained an occupation force of over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, and what it calls a “stabilization force” in Bosnia, in the Balkan region of Eastern Europe. It launched a seven-month air war to topple Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. In Libya, estimates of the civilian death toll from all fighting during the NATO campaign range from 13,000 to 17,000, with 50,000 wounded; civilians killed in the fighting in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2011 total almost 13,000. Countless people have been displaced, wounded, and dispossessed of everything they owned.
NATO claims that the purpose of its mission in Afghanistan is “to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a haven for terrorists, to help provide security, and to contribute to a better future for the Afghan people.” But in fact, the nine years of the U.S.-NATO war in Afghanistan has inflicted horrific suffering on the people of that country. After just five days NATO held a “heads of state” summit in Chicago on May 20 and 21, a NATO air strike wiped out an entire Afghan family—father, mother and six children—according to Afghan officials in Paktia province, near the country’s eastern border with Pakistan. The air strike took place in the village of Sar Khilo in Gerda Serai district of Paktia about 8 p.m. local time Saturday night, according to Rohullah Samon, a spokesman for the provincial governor. The strike killed four teenage boys, two teenage girls, and two women, and wounded two others. Those killed were not Taliban or in any opposition group against the government. They were innocent villagers.
NATO bombing attacks have obliterated wedding parties, farming villages, people walking to visit neighbors or relatives. NATO night raids have left children dead, families torn apart, homes and farms in ruins. The incidents have gone on for almost a decade and have a grim repetitiveness. One of the most infamous was in November 2008, in the village of Wech Baghtu—a wedding party was bombed by U.S.-led NATO planes and at least 37 civilians were murdered. On August 6, 2011, NATO forces, in a firefight with forces they claim were Taliban members, called in a NATO air strike—the bombing destroyed a house and killed all eight family members inside.
Radio Free Europe described one of those murderous assaults, and the NATO response: “The U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan says it regrets that eight young Afghan males were killed in a NATO air strike in the northeastern province of Kapisa on February 8. British Air Commodore Mike Wigston, a NATO spokesman, told a news conference on February 15 that the eight appeared to be carrying arms, according to Afghan and French troops who were operating in the area. NATO investigators are examining photographs of the bodies to estimate their ages, and the NATO spokesman said they appeared to be close to 15 years old, with one older. Local officials have said they believe the boys were 6 to 14 years old.”
Another example, from February this year: According to Reuters, “‘Eight young Afghans lost their lives as the result of an air strike by coalition forces,’ General Lewis Boone, communications director of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) coalition, told reporters. The victims appeared to be carrying weapons and were walking in a menacing manner, prompting ISAF forces in the area to request air support, he said. ‘The aircraft dropped two bombs on the group that we believed to be an imminent threat to our people ... in the end, eight young Afghans lost their lives in this very sad event.’”
On May 7, the Washington Post reported that “NATO airstrikes killed Afghan civilians in two provinces … and the U.S.-led coalition said it plans an apology in one of the incidents. An airstrike Friday killed six members of a family in the Sangin area of southern Helmand province, according to the provincial spokesman.”
Some people argue that it’s a good thing when the U.S. builds “coalitions” to carry out aggression, rather than “going it alone.” Barack Obama has promoted this view, and claims it is one of the things that makes him different from his predecessor, George W. Bush. When Obama ran for president, he promised a “new dawn of American leadership” that would “combine military power with strengthened diplomacy … and build and forge stronger alliances around the world so that we’re not carrying the burdens and challenges by ourselves.”
Anyone who swallows and accepts this view—who thinks that somehow war crimes on such a vast scale are less vicious and hateful if they are carried out by U.S.-led “coalition forces” and not the U.S. alone—needs to ask themselves: is it somehow less horrible for the people of Afghanistan to be torn to shreds by bombing raids under the banner of NATO—by a coalition dominated and led by the United States—than just under the American flag? Is it somehow not as deadly and criminal if “coalition forces” kick in the doors of people’s homes at three in the morning and destroy everyone inside?
These are war crimes of enormous magnitude. The “humanitarian missions” of NATO are monstrous deceit used to cover crimes that are among the worst atrocities afflicted on humanity by the system of capitalism-imperialism.
And anyone who thinks that the U.S. and its NATO allies are withdrawing from Afghanistan needs to discard such illusions and look at the facts. President Obama recently made a highly publicized midnight run to Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, and claimed U.S. combat forces would “withdraw” from Afghanistan by 2014. In fact, the “Strategic Partnership Agreement” signed by Obama and Afghan President Karzai guarantees that a U.S. force of 20,000 to 30,000 will remain in Afghanistan until 2024. It also contained a “Memorandum of Understanding” that will, in the words of journalist Gareth Porter, “allow powerful U.S. Special Operations Forces to continue to carry out the unilateral [one-sided] night raids on private homes that are universally hated in the Pashtun zones of Afghanistan.”
NATO’s “peacekeeping” is aimed at maintaining a world of Western imperialist—especially U.S. imperialist—domination over the people of the world, and sustaining overwhelming firepower advantage over any current or potential opponent. The fundamental purpose of NATO’s so-called “humanitarianism” is to devote massive weaponry to protect, defend, and extend a system that inflicts great suffering on the vast majority of humanity and enriches a handful—this is the “world order” of capitalism-imperialism.