Q: What is
the result of the Symposium in Florence?
Michel Chossudovsky: The event was a great success, with the participation of speakers
from the United States, Europe and Russia. We presented the history of NATO. We
identified and carefully documented its crimes against humanity. And at the end
of the Symposium, we presented the “Declaration of Florence,” a way of exiting
the war system.
Q: In your introduction, you affirmed that the Atlantic Alliance is
not a true alliance…
Michel Chossudovsky: On the
contrary, under the appearance of a multinational military alliance, it is the
Pentagon which dominates the decision-making mechanisms of NATO. The USA
controls the command structures of NATO, which are incorporated with those of
the United States. The Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR) is always a
US General nominated by Washington. The Secretary General, currently Jens
Stoltenberg, is essentially a bureaucrat who handles public relations. He has
no decision-making role.
Q: Another theme you raised was
that of the US military bases in Italy and other European countries, including
in the East, despite the fact that the Warsaw Pact has not existed since 1991,
and despite the promise made to Gorbachev that no extension of NATO towards the
East would ever occur. What is the purpose of these bases?
Michel Chossudovsky: NATO’s tacit objective – an important theme in our debate in
Florence – is to implement, under a different denomination, the de facto
“military occupation” of Western Europe. The United States not only continue to
“occupy” the ex-members of the Second World War “Axis countries” (Italy,
Germany), but have used the badge of NATO to set up US military bases in all of
Western Europe, and, thereafter, in Eastern Europe in the wake of the Cold War,
and in the Balkans in the wake of the NATO war against Yugoslavia
(Serbia-Montenegro).
Q: What has changed in terms of the possible use of nuclear weapons?
Michel Chossudovsky: Immediately
after the Cold War, a new nuclear doctrine was formulated, focused on the
preventive use of nuclear weapons, in other words, on a nuclear first strike as
a means of self-defence. Within the framework of USA-NATO interventions,
presented as peace-keeping measures, a new generation of “low power” and
“non-usable” nuclear weapons was created, described as “inoffensive for
civilians”. US political leaders consider them to be “bombs for pacification.”
The Cold War agreements, which established certain safety measures, have now
been abandoned. The concept of “Mutually Assured Destruction,” relative to the
use of nuclear weapons, has been replaced by the doctrine of preventive nuclear
war.
Q: NATO was “obsolete” at the beginning of the Trump presidency, but
now it has been rebooted by the White House. What relation is there between the
arms race and the economic crisis?
Michel Chossudovsky: War and globalisation go hand in hand.
Militarisation relies on the imposition of macro-economic restructuration in
the target countries. It imposes military spending in order to support the war economy
to the detriment of civil economy. It leads to economic destabilisation and the
loss of the power of national institutions. An example – recently President
Trump proposed huge budget cuts in the health and teaching sectors, and in
social infrastructures, although he has asked for a massive increase in the
budget of the Pentagon. At the beginning of his administration, President Trump
confirmed the increase of expenditure in the military nuclear programme,
launched by Obama, from 1,000 to 1,200 billions of dollars, claiming that this
would serve to make the world safer. All over the European Union, the increase
in military spending, coupled with austerity measures, is leading to the demise
of what used to be called “the Welfare State.” Now, under US pressure, NATO is
engaged in increasing military spending, and Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
declares that this is the correct decision to “guarantee the safety of our population.”
The military interventions are
coupled with concomitant acts of economic sabotage and financial manipulation.
The final objective is the conquest of both human and material resources and of
political institutions. The acts of war support a process of total economic
conquest. The hegemonic project of the United States is to transform countries
and international sovereign institutions into territories which are open for
their penetration. One of their instruments is the imposition of heavy penalties
on debt-ridden countries. The imposition of lethal macro-economic reforms
serves to impoverish vast sectors of the world population.
Q: What is now, and what will become the role of the medias?
Michel Chossudovsky: Without the disinformation broadcast, in general, by almost all
the medias, the military programme of the USA-NATO would collapse like a house
of cards. The imminent dangers of a new war with the most modern weapons and
the atomic peril are not the sort of news that makes the headlines. War is
presented as an act of pacification. War criminals are depicted as pacifiers.
War becomes peace. Reality is reversed. When lies become truth, there is no
going back.
—
Source
Il Manifesto (Italy)
Il Manifesto (Italy)
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