Who Are NATO?
This article was originally published on Tuesday 8th July 2014
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of theSprout or CLIConline
Recently, it was announced that the policing efforts at this year's NATO meeting in Newport will be bigger than that of the London Olympics. Who are/what is NATO? What do they do? And why are they meeting in Newport?
NATO stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and it is an intergovernmental military alliance. It was founded in 1949 after the North Atlantic Treaty was signed by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and the United Kingdom. 65 years on, it now has 28 members, the newest of whom are Albania and Croatia. Originally just a political association, its military aims were borne out in reality in the Korean War and its politics perfected in the Cold War. The first Cold-War expansion of the group took place following the reunification of Germany, and it continues to grow.
NATO's influence of intervention is well known; for example, following the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1992, NATO engaged in bombings that saw a No-Fly zone implemented over the country. At first, it was considered a symbolic and political symbol to aid Bosnia during the war, but quickly grew into a much larger operation.
"Intense scrutiny and criticism"
Another example of NATO operations is that of the Iraq War. Following the 9/11 attacks in the USA, Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty was ratified, leading to the training of Iraqi forces. At least, that's what it's read as: in reality, the USA dragged a whole load of other countries into another illegal war that's led to mass civil war. Most recently, NATO has intervened in the case of the north-African state of Libya, ratified by UN Security Council Resolution 1973 (2011) on Libya that disallowed soldiers on the ground, but NATO did enforce a No-Fly zone.
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NATO helping to train an effective Afghan security force. Image Source.
NATO has also come under intense scrutiny and criticism for its military roles. For example, some may argue that the timing of Bosnia was very convenient. Just years prior to the intervention, debates concerning the topic were raging throughout Europe and the USA. While these debates raged amongst the political elite in the West, Yugoslavia soon fell to genocide as many countries just watched on. NATO was the first to intervene, but much, much later than anybody should have, and perhaps did so to quell criticism of their silence: yet their silence is deafening in other areas.
"The bag of worms that is also known as Afghanistan"
The group are also currently occupying the bag of worms that is also known as Afghanistan. Despite us going there to stop the Taliban [1 - please see related link at bottom of article] (it didn't work), they're now destabilising Pakistan - just check out what happened at Karachi's Jinnah airport when Taliban militants took control of it and shot dead numerous people. Women's rights have not progressed either, despite Amnesty International posters at the last summit in Chicago congratulating them for their 'good work' with women in Afghanistan... funny, 'cause the US and allied forces blocked a bill in the Afghan parliament that would make rape during marriage illegal. Unless of course, women's rights don't matter and it's more of a figurehead to rally feminists and concerned individuals around the age-old stereotype of the aggressive Muslim patriarch and the perpetual victimhood of Muslim women [2 - please see related link at bottom of article]; which has been kicking around since colonialism.
Amnesty's controversial advertising campaign at the time of the 2012 Chicago NATO Summit, apparently on behalf of Afghan women. Image Source.
In addition, there has been evidence to prove that NATO broke UN Resolution 1973 in the case of Libya with independent journalists documenting NATO personnel on the ground working with 'rebels'; the same rebels who were lynching and brutalising black Libyans and carrying out mass-executions. Secondly, the state of Libya, as the second-richest African country, has dramatically been brought down as the move of the regime has drastically destabilised the country. Fingers were quickly pointed by activists and countries like Russia and China concerning the amount of oil Libya possesses and its strategic location.
An "extremely powerful" humanitarian force?
Strangely enough, despite NATO's 'humanitarian' nature, there has been no NATO intervention in Syria, or in Palestine, for example. NATO obviously works in its own interests when attacking or 'enforcing a No-Fly zone' around the country.
As a block of countries, NATO is extremely, extremely powerful and each individual state exercises its military powers in different manners. Take, for example, the USA drone bombing large areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan in Pakistan to 'take down the Taliban'; despite the majority of the people they kill being children. They carry out similar actions in Yemen, too.
A reaper drone, as used by the US military in Pakistan. Image Source.
As a Welsh person, I'm not surprised that other people in Wales are opposing this bunch on our own soil. The huge policing effort - bigger than the Olympics - is to protect this meeting, these leaders and these type of policies.
This article just scratches the nature of NATO. Why not check out STOP NATO CYMRU for more information?
1 Related External Link: Taliban Suicide Bomber Kills Four NATO Troops (3 hours ago)
2 Related External Link: "Whose Islam, Whose Feminism?"
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3 Comments – Post a comment
Tom W
Commented 22 months ago - 8th July 2014 - 13:54pm
Awesome article.
Tom (Sub-Editor)
Commented 22 months ago - 8th July 2014 - 14:02pm
Hi dirty, thank you for submitting this very informative and well-written article. One bit I would particularly like to read more on is the 'US and allied forces blocked a bill in the Afghan parliament that would make rape during marriage illegal' - I could find a lot about the bill but not much on their block. If you could add any links below, that'd be great! Thanks!
simdude101 (correspondent)
Commented 20 months ago - 9th September 2014 - 19:01pm
Hello. I found this article very informative and interesting. Thanks for publishing it, it helped me understand about what on earth NATO are all about! :)