THE ROVING
EYE NATO
occupies sweet home Chicago By
Pepe Escobar
So the anthem now goes
something like this: C'mon, baby don't you
wanna go/back to that same old place/sweet home
ring of steel Chicago.
Robert Johnson
must be spitting fire in his bluesy grave because
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), for
its 25th summit, is occupying Chicago like it was
Kabul - with Americans treated as concentric
circles of Taliban. The Department of Homeland
Security has branded the summit a "National
Special Security Event"; that means the Secret
Service, in practice, has taken over Chicago.
It's lockdown time - complete with
Iraq-style concrete barriers; battalions sporting
upgraded riot gear; "extraction teams" to
snatch and grab
pinpointed protesters in a "low intensity
conflict" environment; and an Orwellian guest
star, the LRAD (long-range acoustic device) - a
sound cannon bound to "ensure a consistent message
is delivered to large crowds", according to the
Chicago Police Department.
It sounds like
a zany remake of John Landis's immortal The
Blues Brothers. So what role would US
President Barack Obama, the Drone Godfather, play?
Aretha Franklin singing Think ? Or
Godfather of Soul James Brown leading the gospel
choir to "see the light"? Obama, after all, is on
a Mission from God himself - the MC of the
militarization of Chicago mirroring NATO's
militarization of the planet.
As for the
masses of Americans who refuse to be occupied, or
who are bent on turning Occupy Chicago into Occupy
NATO, their plight sounds more like Albert King;
Born under a bad sign/I've been down since I
began to crawl/if it wasn't for bad luck/I
wouldn't have no luck at all.
Married to the mob NATO's
Chicago summit is essentially a celebration of the
"Strategic Concept" [1] adopted at the Lisbon
summit in November 2010 - which is a sort of more
palatable version of the Pentagon's "full spectrum
dominance" doctrine.
Crucially, last month
in a Pentagon/NATO funfest in Norfolk, Virginia,
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [2] stressed
the Chicago summit would "recognize the
operational, financial and political contributions
of our partners across a range of efforts to
defend our common values in the Balkans,
Afghanistan, the Middle East, and North Africa".
One wonders what kind of "common values"
are inbuilt in a bogus fight against a ghostly
"al-Qaeda" in Afghanistan - which has meant in
fact NATO getting its ass kicked for interminable
11 years by hordes of enraged nationalistic
Pashtuns with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers.
And what kind of "common values" were
packaged in the "humanitarian" bombing of Libya by
the NATO/AFRICOM combo - when the end product,
NATO rebel-controlled Libya, turns out to be a
racist, hardcore Islamist heaven-cum-militia hell,
now exported to neighbors such as Mali.
Not to mention that NATO adamantly refuses
to acknowledge it killed scores of civilians in
Libya as part of its R2P (responsibility to
protect) mission on behalf of ... civilians.
Yet, when it comes to NATO "partners",
things are as sweet as cherry pie.
Becoming a "partner" to NATO, especially
for smaller countries, is not entirely dissimilar
to being forced to a marriage with the mob.
More sophisticated techniques of extortion
apply. Why don't you join our (nom du jour)
freedom coalition? Why don't you contribute with
some troops? Why don't you buy some gorgeous
weapons from us? Or else ...
Have you
ever loved a drone? NATO itself says
Chicago [3] will discuss three main topics:
The "commitment to Afghanistan". Translation;
let's occupy it forever, at least with three major
bases (Bagram, Shindand and Kandahar), but we must
find a way to spin it nicely. And then we gotta
make those Central Asian "stans" give us more
bases.
The "capabilities" to "defend its population
and territory" - as in defending North America and
Europe by bombing and/or occupying parts of
Central Asia or Africa. This is all bundled up as
"challenges of the 21st century".
NATO's "network of partners across the globe".
The NATO partnership maze stands as one of
the most successful handouts of boxes full of
chocolate in history.
They include; the
Partnership for Peace; the Mediterranean Dialogue;
the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative; the Kosovo
Force; Operation Ocean Shield (off the Horn of
Africa); Operation Unified Protector (in Libya);
Operation Active Endeavor (across the
Mediterranean); the Troop Contributing Countries
in Afghanistan, which feature Asia-Pacific nations
such as Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, South Korea
and Tonga; and the monstrous Partnership
Cooperation Menu (with over 1,600 main dishes and
side dishes).
There is also the
Russian-NATO Council (RNC); that's as fractious a
relationship as humanly conceivable, essentially
because of the US obsession with missile defense.
NATO secretary general, the unctuous Dane
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, already stressed that in
Chicago NATO will announce "initial operational
capability" for the joint US-NATO interceptor
missile system in Europe. Translation; a
phenomenal business venture for Boeing, Lockheed
Martin and Raytheon.
NATO spins it as a
"defense system" for Europe against North Korean
or Iranian inter-continental ballistic missiles.
This is absolute nonsense. This "defense system"
is bound to be integrated into the Pentagon's
first strike capability. Russian intelligence
knows exactly who's supposed to be the real
target.
No wonder Russia won't be at the
Chicago funfest. Nor China. Nor Iran. Pakistan -
for a still undisclosed amount of shiny metal
carrots - is back at the last minute. None of this
deters NATO. There is an internal drive to forge
some sort of partnership with the BRICS group of
emerging powers (Brazil, Russia, India, China and
South Africa) - all in the name of "security on a
global level". The BRICS are not interested.
Still, "liberated" Iraq will inevitably be
annexed to the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.
"Liberated" Libya will be inserted into the
Mediterranean Dialogue. The same will happen to
Syria (provided a Mission from God installs regime
change). "Evil" Iran, on the other hand, will
always be excluded. Unless a Mission from God
produces regime change.
NATOspeak defines
this partnership free-for-all as the need for
"improving interoperability", part of the overall
plan to build a "hub of relationships around the
world". That's the Lisbon 2010 Strategic Concept
in practice; Globocop NATO expanding to -
literally - reach the stars.
So Chicago is
just a test run - an advanced stage, compared to
Gaza or Sadr City in Baghdad, of what the RAND
corporation used to call MOUT (Military Operations
in Urban Terrain). NATO after all has seen the
future - and is immersing itself body and soul in
the "war of the drones". If you can't beat them in
Pashtunistan, at least you can corral them in the
home of the blues. Woke up this morning/and I
found my baby droned.
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