-> SNETNEWS Mailing List NATO: Beyond Collective Defense, Part Two NATO, Atlantic Union, and Economic Socialism by Steve Farrell Echoing Shakespeare's "there's small choice in rotten apples," author and editor John F. McManus described the dilemma of our time, in his book Financial Terrorism as the "the age of false alternatives." Contemplating NATO's attack on sovereign Kosovo the rationale for this unjust war ranges from the camouflaged "peacekeeper" claim of "peace, peace," when there is no peace, to the "opposition" opinion which supposes �good intentions, but poor judgment,� to the blind patriot slant which submits "since we�re there anyway, let's win!" Crystal clear proof that there is a "famine [of legitimate choices] in the land." But then, the coming forth of NATO, as a bulwark against the designs of the evil empire and its Soviet master, was a false alternative from the start, leaving any position shy of a call for its abolition, wanting. As my last column contended, legally speaking, NATO never was the mere "defense alliance" the spin artists claimed. The North Atlantic Treaty and the U.N. Charter defined NATO as a regional arrangement under the United Nations, possessing not just a mandate to act for in behalf of itself, but for the United Nations as well, and not just to fight in defense, but in offense against vague �threats� to �security� and �stability,� as defined by the �opinion� of one or more NATO members. But NATO's troubles run deeper than that. 1. The North Atlantic Treaty contracted its members to not just collective military action, but to strive for collective economic and political action as well. 2. The goal of NATO�s proponents, in this connection, was nothing less than to so habituate common action that European economic and political Unity would naturally result - within 50 years. 3. The more difficult union with the United States and Canada, would follow later, via the same �common action� strategy. 4. The economic and political agenda authorized by NATO was in large part implemented under the Marshall plan, in its supposed war against communism, and was hypocritically, socialistic. Some saw the coming danger from the word go. In August of 1949, former Under Secretary of State J. Rueben Clark Jr, a noted Constitutional and international law scholar recognized that our signature committing us to NATO at once forsook Washington�s foreign policy to �never entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe,� and the Monroe Doctrine�s policy to �never...suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs.� An especially disturbing part of the treaty in his view, was that this �military alliance� contained �economic and political provisions� which beckoned international interference in the �domestic policies� of nations. He cited NATO Articles 2 and 3. Politically, article 2 requires the parties to �contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these institutions are founded..." Some might call that political agenda innocent, or in our best interest. Clark didn't. He knew that European and American interpretations of liberty are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, as we are now evidencing in the World Court. Europe, for instance, accepts the lex regia perspective on rights which asserts that rights proceed from the state, and thus, can be abridged by the state. Whereas the United States adopts the natural law perspective which recognizes rights proceed from God; and that governments exist solely to protect rights. And again, Europe's judicial system operates under the Napoleonic Code which would leave the accused "guilty until proven innocent" while we assert "innocent until proven guilty." No trivial differences. In the former the state is sovereign, in the latter, the individual is. Clark wondered which standard of liberty would be the measuring stick by which free institutions would be "strengthened" within or without NATO. Hints emerge. NATO members are: committed, say articles 2 and 3, to "promoting conditions of stability� suggesting planned, not free economies; committed to promoting "well-being" and "mutual [economic] aid" implying the forced redistribution of the wealth (the U.S. taxpayer has always paid the lions share); committed to "eliminate conflict in their international economic policies" illuding to free trade - if a controlling hand over international trade equals free; committed to engage in "economic collaboration" portending economic union; and committed to the establishment of a European-wide military force on a "continuous" basis, which "spells great standing armies [that] have always meant war and the loss of liberty." The legal language gave us a hint which �free institutions� would prevail; some of NATO�s promoters were more blunt. First, would they respect the American people�s sovereign right to check NATO�s wars via Congress? Walter Mills answers in the New York Tribune: "By its very origin and nature the pact...recognizes the limits placed by practical politics upon the theoretic and mystic freedom of Congress to declare, or refuse to go to war." Is that what our President, who pushed for NATO believed? Yes - within months, President Truman, cited the North Atlantic Treaty as authority to make war on sovereign Korea without the consent of Congress Did the North Atlantic Treaties provision for �continuous� build up of NATO�s military forces, mean constant war and standing armies as Clark predicted? Yes, one year after the Treaty was signed, Mr. Truman informed Congress: "The rearmament of the Allies must be planned, not wholly or even primarily to fight a major defensive war against the Soviet Union...but to deal effectively with the possibility of a series of limited wars, such as that in Korea, on a continuing basis. Political commitment to defend certain areas of Europe and the North Atlantic are insufficient. There must be a review of United States commitments in the Middle East and Asia." If you will, an unlimited, imperialistic, military objective for NATO. Next comes the political agenda. Was it the intent of NATO to retain sovereign military forces, who would respond together only when under attack? Said Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. �This [North Atlantic Pact] means helping the development of a Western European armed force...a uniforce.....with headquarter at Fountainebleau in France.� But, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, took it a step further. In what can only be described as a blatant move to force permanent military interdependence on NATO members with an attending subversion of their sovereignty, he told a joint session of Congress: �The most important action of the council...[was] the recommendation....[to create] balanced collective forces, rather than the duplication by each nation in large or small way of what every other nation was doing� This he said, �demonstrates that each country will rely on every other member of the community, and that the community will look to each country to contribute what it is best able to contribute to the common defense in accordance to a common plan.� In overly simplistic terms, Nation A provides the tanks, Nation B the fighter jets, nation C the navy. With the goal that no one nation has the complete program, and is thus dependent, read that forever dependent, upon membership in the alliance. And what more? �If we put this principle into practice, it follows that the members of the Atlantic community will have to intensify their practice of developing common policies on the major problems of common concern in the field of foreign affairs, and that they develop even closer and more cohesive economic policies.� The kind of economic objectives he saw arising out of this alliance? �A cooperative approach to the cost of defense;� an effort to �maintain and improve standards of living;� an effort to �provide essential assistance to other (non-NATO) free nations of the world in their development; � indeed, the mission of NATO, said he, was �to advance the welfare� of the entire human race. Welcome to utopia. He cited as an example of cooperative economic enterprise which forge economic and political union, the �coal-steel pool.� These supra-national regulatory bodies, created under the coercion of Marshall fund grants and loans, operated over and above participating European nations, and thus subverted national sovereignty, on one enterprise at a time. Such joint �economic cooperation� would one day pave the road to the development of a North Atlantic �economic system,� he said. Let it be perfectly clear, the literature on NATO and the Marshall Plan, have always had one goal in mind - European Union followed by Atlantic Union. As Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger in his 1972 book �American Foreign Policy� made this startling point: �European Unity is a reality. The United State welcomes and supports it in all its dimensions, political as well as economic. We believe it must be made irreversible and that it must strengthen Trans-Atlantic ties.� He added: �European unity, in our view, is not contradictory to Atlantic unity.� In forging both sides of the Atlantic into one government, �military arrangements are not enough,� also, �political cooperation [must be] established which links each partner with the survival of the others.� �A new generation habituated to cooperative efforts,� he said, was the key. It was the way the Marshall Plan did it to Europe, he stated. Finally, not only did the planners and promoters of NATO see this as a regional subversion of sovereignty, but their economic forecast was as socialistic as the Treaty sounded. In How Can Europe Survive?, noted free market economist Professor Hans Sennholz, in a piercing critique of the coming European Union, discloses, from the close of World War II through 1953 the United States government poured more than $43 billion dollars through the Marshall Plan, and other �reconstruction programs, into Europe. These were to him, �a windfall for socialism.� For along with the money, came not pressures to �abolish controls and return to sounder principles of government,� but rather to foster controls and centralization at every turn. Professor Michael J. Hogan, in his work The Marshall Plan, concurred with Sennholz: �Through American aid...Marshall Planners tried to underwrite industrial modernization projects, promote Keynesian strategies of aggregate economic management (Keynes was a Fabian socialist), [and]...encourage progressive tax policies (the communist graduated income tax), low-cost housing programs, and other measures of economic and social reform.� This is in part the agenda of NATO. It�s long term goal was to work hand in hand with the Marshall plan to forge a united Europe and later a united Atlantic along socialistic lines. Today, NATO continues to foster a European dependency upon the United States and is thus still subject to the less than pro free enterprise, less than pro- U.S. sovereignty leanings of our State Department. The 50 year goal of creating a European Union, has been completed, Europe is drenched in socialism, as planned, and Yugoslavia, thanks to our participation in a war which didn�t involve us, will no doubt be forced into the union, as a very much less than sovereign member, for security sake. And you can�t help but wonder, how long until America experiences the same fate? |==============================| The better the society, the less law there will be. In heaven, there will be no law; in hell there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed. ~G. Gilmore - Age of American Law |==============================| -> Send "subscribe snetnews " to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -> Posted by: "PRRG" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
