Letter: NATO Should Just Go Away

 

http://heraldnews.suntimes.com/opinions/letters/11877919-474/letters-nato-should-just-go-away.html

Joliet Herald News
April 17, 2012

Letter: NATO should just go away

From the ashes of World War II rose the great superpower rivalry — the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union. The U.S. formed NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The U.S.S.R. formed the Warsaw Pact, building up the largest concentration of military machines ever, along the Iron Curtain.

Eventually, the Soviet Union went bankrupt and the Cold War came to a screeching halt, scrapping the Warsaw Pact.

So what's happened to NATO? To my amazement, it's grown larger, with soldiers all over the world and no end in sight. The U.S., already nearly half the world's "kill power," combines with NATO nations for a whopping three-quarters of the world's military spending.

The four big NATO wars: Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan are outside the defense of the original borders in violation of the treaty, and further agreements are being broken as NATO pushes missile systems inside former Soviet territory.

These wars have been one lie after another, and the results have been considerably less than a resounding victory. As soon as we start ignoring the disaster of one war, NATO is ramping up for another.

As with the Warsaw Pact at the end of the Cold War, why in blazes didn't NATO just go away? Most press coverage of the pending NATO summit in May focuses solely on the supposed violence of protesters — as if we now need NATO to keep them from overthrowing the government.

We all need to meet in Chicago on May 20 for that summit at McCormick Place to ask why NATO should even exist. We need to agitate for scrapping NATO before it bankrupts us on another cold war or, worse, another world war or little wars that add up to a really big war.

Gary Jones
Joliet