Sat22Mar - BRUSSELS - Shut Down NATO

[TonyGosling]

NATO Game Over:

on 22 March 2008, five years after the start of the Iraq war, activists from all over Europe will nonviolently try to enter and close NATO headquarters in Brussels, in order to prevent further war crimes and military occupations. The following two days, Bombspotting and War Resisters' International organise a conference on how to counter the ongoing military globalisation with nonviolent resistance.

Military globalisation and NATO

Europe is at war. The bombs are not falling in Europe, but several thousands of miles away in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nevertheless war is waged from Europe. With the start of the war in Iraq five years ago, when the US waged war from its European bases together with the British military forces, this became very visible.

In 2003 54,000 US military personnel based in Europe were deployed or were active in direct support of the war against Iraq. 320_000 tons of military material was shipped from Europe to the war zone in the Persian Gulf. The US Army had 26_000 European-based soldiers deployed, mainly from Germany. Among them were 1_000 soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vicenza (Italy), who did a parachute jump into Northern Iraq taking off from Aviano airport (Italy). Bombing flights over Iraq by the US and UK Air Force were continuously taking off from British bases, while 3_000 combat sorties were flown from aircraft carriers of the US 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. Marines were inserted into North Iraq from Souda Bay on Crete.........

NATO-Game over
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/390032.html

[TonyGosling]

The Criminalization of the State: "Independent Kosovo", a Territory under US-NATO Military Rule

by Michel Chossudovsky - Global Research, February 4, 2008

While the European Union and the US, have acknowledged that they would be "opposed" to a " unilateral" declaration of independence of Kosovo, the secession of Kosovo from Serbia is already de facto. It is part of a US-NATO military agenda. It is the culmination of the 1999 NATO led invasion. It responds to US-NATO strategic objectives.

Moreover, the "compromise" Ahtisaari Proposal under the helm of the former Finnish Prime Minister to establish a "multi-ethnic" Kosovar State has little to do with "national sovereignty" or "independence". It is a copy and paste replicate of the structures imposed on Bosnia-Herzegovina under the 1995 Dayton agreements. It essentially sustains the authority of the military occupation. Under proposed blueprint, all the major decisions pertaining to public spending, social programs, monetary and trading arrangements would remain in the hands of the NATO-UN occupation administration.

The re-election of a "pro-Western" president Boris Tadic in the Serbian elections is likely to "legitimize" Kosovo's de facto secession. Boris Tadic's Democratic Party takes its orders from Washington. In 2000, it actively participated in the ousting of Slobodan Milosevic from the Serbian presidency. Moreover, Boris Tadic as Serbian president, is also the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. He is unlikely to act without consulting Washington and Brussels in the event of a unilateral declaration of independence.

Since the 1999 NATO invasion, Kosovo has become a territory under foreign military rule. Kosovo remains under UN administration, In practice, however, it is under NATO military jurisdiction. Secession from Serbia would reinforce the control of the NATO-UN occupation authority.

The civilian government of the province is headed by Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) (Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës or UÇK in Albanian). Known for its extensive links to Albanian and European crime syndicates, the KLA was supported from the outset in the mid-1990s by the CIA and Germany's intelligence agency, the Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND). In the course of the 1999 war, the KLA was supported directly by NATO. ........................

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7996