PEJ News - Bo Filter - Asks Author and former communications expert who worked in a US Top Secret War Room - Twenty-six NATO generals are coming to Victoria this coming weekend (September 7-9) to strategize their next moves. They tried coming to Victoria in 2001 but the meeting was cancelled due to planned demonstrations and security costs. This time they decided to come in secret, but the peace community recently found out about the summit and is quickly scrambling to mount an action. So who is NATO and why all the fuss?

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NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was created on 4 April 1949. It was sold to the public as defence, while some critics charged that NATO was offensive by design. It has 26 member states including Canada. With the ending of the cold war, NATO should have been disbanded. Instead it re-invented itself as a constabulary force, a self-appointed global police with the right to interfere in the internal politics of any country. By acting unilaterally and without United Nation sanction, NATO is clearly on the offensive.

In coming to Victoria, the media will boast of how NATO is freeing the oppressed people of Afghanistan, Iraq and Yugoslavia. This is understandable given that NATO is a huge military establishment with huge taxpayer budgets and principle shares in the corporate media. As usual, a large portion of a politically sleepy public will nod their heads in appreciation, "Thank God for NATO," and that will be the end of the story.

Notwithstanding, there are a growing number of disillusioned people who are looking, listening and reading about the deeper issues surrounding NATO. They are learning that NATO is on the offence, and that it's the single largest resource guzzler on the planet. The countries they attack have key resources or are key pathways to energy-rich regions.

The people and their governments in the target countries are a nuisance and must be cleared out of the way. This is raw military parlance, which I often heard while working in a U.S. top-secret war room for over two years. This explains fundamentally why many civilian targets were bombed in Yugoslavia in 1999.

Yugoslavia had attacked no one, but was standing up to Washington's demand for control of Yugoslavia's economy. Unilaterally and without jurisdiction and without United Nation sanction, the U.S. led NATO into an illegal all-out assault. Yugoslavia was bombed for 78 days and nights with a particular focus on its economic infrastructure. This well developed country was destroyed, re-partitioned to Washington's liking, releasing target resources for the taking. Indiscriminate bombing and the indiscriminate killing of civilians with the use of phosphorus and cluster bombs nullified NATO's claim of fighting a humanitarian war for freedom and democracy.

In similar fashion, bombing Iraq and Afghanistan back to the stone ages has not been damage enough for NATO. They decided to use nuclear weapons, U-238 called depleted uranium (DU), dirty bombs, which have a toxic half-life of 4.5 billion years. When DU burns, it oxidizes into nano-particles about .1-.01 microns in size. As a fine invisible dust DU has been blown by winds across the planet. None of us know how much of this we are breathing in at this very moment.

The effect of releasing DU into the global eco-system is already showing catastrophic effects. The gene pool of all life forms is being damaged. Strangely deformed human infants are being born and stillborn, not only to families in the target countries but also to the returning NATO soldiers, as one element of "Gulf War Syndrome" and "Balkan Syndrome." The global effect, according to Japanese Physicist Dr. Katsuma Yagasaki, has been the equivalent of setting off 400,000 Nagasaki atomic bombs. The question now is, "Have we all been handed a death sentence?"

This question is so critical to the whole of humanity that an International Criminal Tribunal was held in June of 2000 in New York City. NATO leaders were found guilty of 19 separate War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Crimes Against Peace, including the illegal use of depleted uranium, which was outlawed by the United Nations in 1999. The verdict regarding DU was "omnicide" meaning "the extermination of life, contamination of air, water and food resources and the irreversible alteration of the genetic code of all living organisms including plant life as a direct consequence of the use of radioactive munitions..."

Perhaps, not all has been lost. Certainly the NATO plans should not go forward with more DU disbursed into the global atmosphere. Not only should NATO be abolished as recommended by the public tribunal, all top officials should stand trial in the newly formed International Criminal Court (ICC). Canada ratified the ICC in 2000 then passed another bill to make sure that any and all suspected war criminals can be tried by a Canadian federal court for violations committed before the ICC came into force.

The ICC jurisdiction covers the Crime of Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, and War Crimes. As defined, NATO could be charged with numerous counts. Naturally, the US-dominated NATO is less than enthusiastic about the creation of the ICC, not wanting to see itself as the target of litigation. In fact, the US has tried to defang the ICC with Article 98 Agreements, another interesting subject.

For now we might say that a new global war has broken out between the world citizenry and unchecked US militarism. The US/NATO militarists want a freehand with immunity from prosecution. Whereas, the people want freedom from secrecy; freedom from contaminated air, water, and genetic mutilation, and instead of immunity, they want justice.

Jooma Khan of Laghman province, Afghanistan, March 2003
"When I say my deformed grandson, I realized that my hopes of the future have vanished for good... I know we are part of the genocide brought on us by America, A silent death from which I know we will not escape."