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PEACE INSTEAD OF NATO
02.02.2015
By CURRENT CONCERNS
28 JANUARY 2015
By Oskar Lafontaine, Current Concerns, No. 2/2015
For the vast majority of the population of the former Federal
Republic, NATO has been the guarantor of peace and freedom for a long
time. Anti-communism, fuelled by the fear of the Soviet Union operated
by the world revolution, the Berlin Blockade and the construction of
the Berlin Wall left little room to think about alternatives to NATO.
But in 1965 at the latest, when US President Lyndon B. Johnson
bombed North Vietnam and deployed more and more ground troops to
South Vietnam, a discussion about the policy and objectives of the
Western power started especially in the universities. The military
infrastructure of NATO, which has always been a US military structure
in its core, brought about Germany's involvement in every US war like
that of other states', which were integrated into it. That has not
changed until today. In his book "The Grand Chessboard" former security
adviser to Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, commented this dependence
as follows: "The brutal fact is that Western Europe and increasingly
also Central Europe, remains largely an American protectorate, with
its allied states reminiscent of ancient vassals and tributaries."
The prevailing view, according to which Gerhard Schroder did not
participate in the Iraq war of George W. Bush is not the whole truth.
This war was also fought from US facilities in Germany. If Saddam
Hussein had been equipped with long range missiles, he would have been
entitled to attack US facilities like the German Ramstein Air Base.
As in the 80s, the peace movement took a stance against the
establishment of further nuclear missiles in East and West, the
calls for a withdrawal from the military infrastructure of NATO
became popular. Germany's participation in the war in Afghanistan and
NATO's eastward enlargement as a major cause of the Ukraine crisis
are meanwhile also discussed among politicians of the conservative
spectrum and raise the question whether a longer stay of Germany in
the NATO, may increasingly be setting the security of the Federal
Republic of Germany at risk. The so-called war on terror led by the
United States is a terrorist breeding programme and increases the
risk of terrorist attacks in Germany, as the former CDU MP Jurgen
Todenhofer properly analysed the situation.
Already in 2007, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt stated:
"For the peace of the world, today there is much less risk emanating
from Russia than from America. (!) Even if America's hegemony will
endure for a long future, the European nations have nevertheless to
maintain their dignity. (!) The dignity is based on our adherence to
the responsibility of our own conscience."
On 13 December 2014, at the occasion of the demonstration called the
"Friedenswinter" in Berlin, in front of the Federal President's office,
the theologian Eugen Drewermann said: "NATO is the most aggressive
alliance of all times."
So peace instead of NATO!
But if NATO will be resolved like the Warsaw Pact, then what? The Left
Party knows that the change of military alliances is not a sufficient
condition to keep peace. Foreign politics was and is fighting for
resources and markets. Euphemistic speeches about human rights,
democracy and free market economy cannot change this fact. The famous
phrase of Jean Jaurès "Capitalism carries war within itself like a
cloud carries rain" has been confirmed in recent decades over and over
again. As the battle for raw materials and markets is also discharged
by military action, such as the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya
have shown, Pope Francis comes to the conclusion: "We are in the
middle of the third world war, but in a war of instalments. There
are economies that must wage war in order to survive. Therefore,
they produce and sell weapons."
Since for the Left, capitalism and democracy are incompatible with each
other, it knows that to build a democratic society with a different
economic order is essential. Another democratic economic order would
also change the present power structure of the world, in which the
US global dominance has reached an unprecedented scale.
Interestingly, this basic policy approach of the Left concerning
insurance for peacekeeping is also shared by US policy hardliners.
Brzezinski writes in the above-mentioned book "The Grand Chessboard":
"Never before has a populist democracy attained international
supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands
popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge
to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial
(that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even
among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to
democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization."
This is the same idea that Immanuel Kant formulated in his essay
about "Perpetual Peace". He demanded a republican constitution for
all states so that citizens would then be empowered to decide for
themselves whether or not there was to be war. They would have to
decide on "bringing all the calamities of war upon themselves".
Translated to the current situation, this means that we would not be
involved in the Afghanistan war if the population had voted on it or
if politicians and journalists favourable to wars of intervention had
been exposed to the trials and tribulations of the war in Afghanistan
themselves.
Prerequisite for a structurally peaceful world is the development of
a truly democratic society, i.e. of an economic order that prevents
large amounts of capital leading to an accumulation of power, because
it leaves the capital to those who earn it by their labour.
But the Left cannot let itself be contented with this statement alone.
Even in this day and age and given the current social and power
structures, answers must be found. This brings a possible participation
of the Left in a Federal Government into focus. The mainstream media
and the regime parties SPD (Social Democrats) and The Greens look
upon the willingness of the Left to engage in wars of intervention
as a requirement for a common government. Should they hold on to this
condition, there can be no red-red-green government.
The years of bombardment have led to a certain degree of discomfiture
of several elected representatives of the Left and have caused them to
pass some comments which have given rise to annoyances and confusion.
Although the ban on arms exports had been a central promise of the
Lefts' last federal election campaign, some members of the Left called
for arms sales to the Kurds to fight the IS. An elected representative
working to abolish a key campaign promise behaves like the system
parties and contributes to the continuous increase of abstentionism.
The political key mistake of this proposal, however, is that the demand
for arms sales to the Kurds means to submit to the US imperialism's
logic of war. It is an open secret that US policy has the oil wells
in the Kurdish region in mind, and by means of destabilization of
the Middle East is working towards political structures that will
guarantee the exploitation of oil reserves by Western corporations.
Of similar quality was the attempt made by some members of the Left
to blue-pencil the call for Germany's resignation from the military
infrastructure of NATO, i.e. the US, from the Left Party's programme
for the European elections. Those who had made this proposal were
disregarding the fact that with this, they are in favour of maintaining
a US infrastructure on German soil, from where, amongst other things,
the United States' drone war with its thousands of dead is being
controlled.
In the coming years the Left must make it absolutely clear that the
condition sine qua non of their participation in a federal government
is a foreign policy that withdraws from the military escalation for
which US imperialism is responsible. In its basic programme, the Left
calls for the conversion of NATO into a collective defense alliance
involving Russia. This is a rejection of the unilateral eastward
enlargement of NATO, which is a breach of the West's promise and has
led to the current crisis in Ukraine. The following requirements are
a prerequisite for this security concept, which will overcome Cold
War structures and which was also advocated by the SPD (the Social
Democrats) for many years:
1. Merkel's policy towards Russia must be replaced by an Eastern policy
of detente which is based on Willy Brandt's successful foreign policy.
2. A federal government in which the Left participates will not
agree to Ukraine's acceptance into NATO or any other states' adjacent
to Russia.
3. A federal government in which the Left participates will reject the
stationing of NATO troop formations on the western border of Russia.
Moreover, our terms and conditions remain the same. The "Bundeswehr"
(German army) must not participate in military interventions abroad,
and arms exports to areas of tension are to be stopped immediately.
This list of demands is, of course, not exhaustive. So for instance
we must set about the construction of a Willy-Brandtcorps for disaster
relief and disease control.
It remains crucial that participation of The Left in a federal
government is only justifiable if the German foreign policy undergoes
a fundamental reorientation after the failures in Afghanistan, in
Ukraine and in Europe.
Source: "Junge Welt" of 8 January 2015,
www.jungewelt.de/2015/01-08/021.php
(Translation Current Concerns )
Oskar Lafontaine is a German politician who served in the government
of Germany as Minister of Finance from 1998 to 1999. Previously he
was Minister-President of the state of Saarland from 1985 to 1998, and
he was also Chairman of the Social Democratic Party from 1995 to 1999.
>From 2007 to 2010, Lafontaine was co-chairman of The Left. He resigned
from federal political functions in January 2010.
http://www.wpfdc.org/blog/politics/19305-peace-instead-of-nato
http://www.noravank.am/eng/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=13136
02.02.2015
By CURRENT CONCERNS
28 JANUARY 2015
By Oskar Lafontaine, Current Concerns, No. 2/2015
For the vast majority of the population of the former Federal
Republic, NATO has been the guarantor of peace and freedom for a long
time. Anti-communism, fuelled by the fear of the Soviet Union operated
by the world revolution, the Berlin Blockade and the construction of
the Berlin Wall left little room to think about alternatives to NATO.
But in 1965 at the latest, when US President Lyndon B. Johnson
bombed North Vietnam and deployed more and more ground troops to
South Vietnam, a discussion about the policy and objectives of the
Western power started especially in the universities. The military
infrastructure of NATO, which has always been a US military structure
in its core, brought about Germany's involvement in every US war like
that of other states', which were integrated into it. That has not
changed until today. In his book "The Grand Chessboard" former security
adviser to Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, commented this dependence
as follows: "The brutal fact is that Western Europe and increasingly
also Central Europe, remains largely an American protectorate, with
its allied states reminiscent of ancient vassals and tributaries."
The prevailing view, according to which Gerhard Schroder did not
participate in the Iraq war of George W. Bush is not the whole truth.
This war was also fought from US facilities in Germany. If Saddam
Hussein had been equipped with long range missiles, he would have been
entitled to attack US facilities like the German Ramstein Air Base.
As in the 80s, the peace movement took a stance against the
establishment of further nuclear missiles in East and West, the
calls for a withdrawal from the military infrastructure of NATO
became popular. Germany's participation in the war in Afghanistan and
NATO's eastward enlargement as a major cause of the Ukraine crisis
are meanwhile also discussed among politicians of the conservative
spectrum and raise the question whether a longer stay of Germany in
the NATO, may increasingly be setting the security of the Federal
Republic of Germany at risk. The so-called war on terror led by the
United States is a terrorist breeding programme and increases the
risk of terrorist attacks in Germany, as the former CDU MP Jurgen
Todenhofer properly analysed the situation.
Already in 2007, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt stated:
"For the peace of the world, today there is much less risk emanating
from Russia than from America. (!) Even if America's hegemony will
endure for a long future, the European nations have nevertheless to
maintain their dignity. (!) The dignity is based on our adherence to
the responsibility of our own conscience."
On 13 December 2014, at the occasion of the demonstration called the
"Friedenswinter" in Berlin, in front of the Federal President's office,
the theologian Eugen Drewermann said: "NATO is the most aggressive
alliance of all times."
So peace instead of NATO!
But if NATO will be resolved like the Warsaw Pact, then what? The Left
Party knows that the change of military alliances is not a sufficient
condition to keep peace. Foreign politics was and is fighting for
resources and markets. Euphemistic speeches about human rights,
democracy and free market economy cannot change this fact. The famous
phrase of Jean Jaurès "Capitalism carries war within itself like a
cloud carries rain" has been confirmed in recent decades over and over
again. As the battle for raw materials and markets is also discharged
by military action, such as the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya
have shown, Pope Francis comes to the conclusion: "We are in the
middle of the third world war, but in a war of instalments. There
are economies that must wage war in order to survive. Therefore,
they produce and sell weapons."
Since for the Left, capitalism and democracy are incompatible with each
other, it knows that to build a democratic society with a different
economic order is essential. Another democratic economic order would
also change the present power structure of the world, in which the
US global dominance has reached an unprecedented scale.
Interestingly, this basic policy approach of the Left concerning
insurance for peacekeeping is also shared by US policy hardliners.
Brzezinski writes in the above-mentioned book "The Grand Chessboard":
"Never before has a populist democracy attained international
supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands
popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge
to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial
(that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even
among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to
democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization."
This is the same idea that Immanuel Kant formulated in his essay
about "Perpetual Peace". He demanded a republican constitution for
all states so that citizens would then be empowered to decide for
themselves whether or not there was to be war. They would have to
decide on "bringing all the calamities of war upon themselves".
Translated to the current situation, this means that we would not be
involved in the Afghanistan war if the population had voted on it or
if politicians and journalists favourable to wars of intervention had
been exposed to the trials and tribulations of the war in Afghanistan
themselves.
Prerequisite for a structurally peaceful world is the development of
a truly democratic society, i.e. of an economic order that prevents
large amounts of capital leading to an accumulation of power, because
it leaves the capital to those who earn it by their labour.
But the Left cannot let itself be contented with this statement alone.
Even in this day and age and given the current social and power
structures, answers must be found. This brings a possible participation
of the Left in a Federal Government into focus. The mainstream media
and the regime parties SPD (Social Democrats) and The Greens look
upon the willingness of the Left to engage in wars of intervention
as a requirement for a common government. Should they hold on to this
condition, there can be no red-red-green government.
The years of bombardment have led to a certain degree of discomfiture
of several elected representatives of the Left and have caused them to
pass some comments which have given rise to annoyances and confusion.
Although the ban on arms exports had been a central promise of the
Lefts' last federal election campaign, some members of the Left called
for arms sales to the Kurds to fight the IS. An elected representative
working to abolish a key campaign promise behaves like the system
parties and contributes to the continuous increase of abstentionism.
The political key mistake of this proposal, however, is that the demand
for arms sales to the Kurds means to submit to the US imperialism's
logic of war. It is an open secret that US policy has the oil wells
in the Kurdish region in mind, and by means of destabilization of
the Middle East is working towards political structures that will
guarantee the exploitation of oil reserves by Western corporations.
Of similar quality was the attempt made by some members of the Left
to blue-pencil the call for Germany's resignation from the military
infrastructure of NATO, i.e. the US, from the Left Party's programme
for the European elections. Those who had made this proposal were
disregarding the fact that with this, they are in favour of maintaining
a US infrastructure on German soil, from where, amongst other things,
the United States' drone war with its thousands of dead is being
controlled.
In the coming years the Left must make it absolutely clear that the
condition sine qua non of their participation in a federal government
is a foreign policy that withdraws from the military escalation for
which US imperialism is responsible. In its basic programme, the Left
calls for the conversion of NATO into a collective defense alliance
involving Russia. This is a rejection of the unilateral eastward
enlargement of NATO, which is a breach of the West's promise and has
led to the current crisis in Ukraine. The following requirements are
a prerequisite for this security concept, which will overcome Cold
War structures and which was also advocated by the SPD (the Social
Democrats) for many years:
1. Merkel's policy towards Russia must be replaced by an Eastern policy
of detente which is based on Willy Brandt's successful foreign policy.
2. A federal government in which the Left participates will not
agree to Ukraine's acceptance into NATO or any other states' adjacent
to Russia.
3. A federal government in which the Left participates will reject the
stationing of NATO troop formations on the western border of Russia.
Moreover, our terms and conditions remain the same. The "Bundeswehr"
(German army) must not participate in military interventions abroad,
and arms exports to areas of tension are to be stopped immediately.
This list of demands is, of course, not exhaustive. So for instance
we must set about the construction of a Willy-Brandtcorps for disaster
relief and disease control.
It remains crucial that participation of The Left in a federal
government is only justifiable if the German foreign policy undergoes
a fundamental reorientation after the failures in Afghanistan, in
Ukraine and in Europe.
Source: "Junge Welt" of 8 January 2015,
www.jungewelt.de/2015/01-08/021.php
(Translation Current Concerns )
Oskar Lafontaine is a German politician who served in the government
of Germany as Minister of Finance from 1998 to 1999. Previously he
was Minister-President of the state of Saarland from 1985 to 1998, and
he was also Chairman of the Social Democratic Party from 1995 to 1999.
>From 2007 to 2010, Lafontaine was co-chairman of The Left. He resigned
from federal political functions in January 2010.
http://www.wpfdc.org/blog/politics/19305-peace-instead-of-nato
http://www.noravank.am/eng/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=13136