NATO: The New Holy Alliance
The Chicago conclave and history's little ironies
They’re cowering in Chicago, where the NATO summit is scheduled to open on May 20: the security arrangements go well beyond paranoia. They’re telling office workers in buildings adjacent to the site to “dress down,” lest they become identified with the proceedings. A huge “security zone” is being imposed on McCormick Place, where the conclave will take place, and subway riders who must pass under the site will be subjected to pat-downs and other security measures. The airspace above the venue will be restricted, and any planes that pass through it will be promptly shot down.
I have no doubt the original McCormick – Col. Robert Rutherford McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune from the 1920s to the mid-fifties – is rolling in his grave as the NATO-ites prepare to convene in the place named for him. The Colonel denounced NATO, on the occasion of its formation, as the instrument of a destructive internationalism, one that would forever entangle us in the feuds and intrigues of a dangerous world: for his pains, he was attacked in The New Republic and even in The Nation (!) for “taking the Soviet line.” As McCormick, along with such notables as Joe Kennedy and Herbert Hoover, warned against the folly of “collective security” embodied by NATO, the editors of The New Republic envisioned a Red Dawn-like future in which the Commie Colossus would sweep across Europe and leap the Atlantic “until the Stalinist caucus in the Tribune Tower would bring out in triumph the first communist edition of the Chicago Tribune.”
Now that the Colossus has been downed and the original rationale for NATO no longer exists, the same hysterics are the occasion for any suggestion that America’s international footprint – considerably enlarged by its participation in NATO – be scaled back, Not to worry: new rationales are readily available, and the prosecution of our eternal “war on terrorism” has breathed new life into NATO’s moribund body.
Like all government bureaucracies, NATO is relentlessly devoted to its own self-perpetuation: far from dismantling itself after the end of the alleged “Soviet threat,” the NATO-crats extended their reach, moving into the Caucasus, where Georgia’s would-be dictator Mikheil Saakashvili is hoping to join the ranks of the alliance. The US has put the NATO “brand” on its occupation of Afghanistan, with the new “multilateralist” emphasis of the Obama administration being given a fresh gloss in Chicago.
As a conduit of “defense” funds piped directly into the coffers of the military-industrial complex, NATO is a reliable source of income for our crony capitalists. Aside from that, however, it provides a political and ideological framework on which to hang our interventionist pretensions. Which brings us back to Colonel McCormick….
When proposals for an “international army” arose in the postwar era, McCormick’s Tribune presciently compared the idea to the Holy Alliance, a gaggle of European monarchs who plotted to defend the “Christian” principle of monarchical absolutism in the post-Napoleonic world:
“Almost immediately the defensive arrangement became aggressive. The people of Spain found their government oppressive and sought to do something about it. Their efforts were put down. The people of Piedmont and of Naples were the victims of appalling misgovernment: in 1821 they had to be repressed by the Austrians under Gen. Frimont.
“And so it went. The South American nations had won their independence from Spain during the long European struggle. Now that the war was over, the king of Spain, with the repressive ideas of the Holy Alliance as his guide, was resolved to force his former colonies back into submission. He might have sent his fleet and his armies across the Atlantic if President Monroe had not put forward the doctrine that bears his name.”
Under President Monroe, America was a bulwark against the Holy Alliance of its day, the focus of Europe’s fearful monarchs as the peasants began to rise. Today, America stands at the head of a new Holy Alliance, as our modern-day Metternichs convene in Chicago amid rumors of a peasant protest that have the authorities terrified. The entire affair is to be walled off, with troops in the streets and snipers on rooftops: the city will be in lockdown for days.
Chicago has often been a battleground in the wars our government has waged on its own citizens. The year 1968 saw a pitched battle in the shadow of the Democratic national convention, as antiwar protestors fought police in the streets: the picture of Hubert Humphrey standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Boss Daley – against the backdrop of cops flattening peaceful protestors – forever discredited the cold war liberal wing of that party.
Naturally, one hopes the protest will be peaceful, but the authorities are making this difficult if not impossible by imposing draconian bans on almost all forms of protest – public gatherings are all but outlawed for the duration, unless they take place in designated “protest pens.” Hardly anyone finds it shocking that the constitutional right to assembly and to free speech has been summarily abolished by Boss Rahm Emanuel. After all, the Constitution is merely a national document, which must yield to the supranational priorities of the NATO confab.
NATO should have died with the end of the cold war. Instead it grew into the octopus-like creature it is today, its suckered tentacles attaching themselves to every conflict that arises, internationalizing ancient tribal feuds and elevating minor border skirmishes to the level of international crises.
America pays the bills, and provides the military backbone, while the Europeans are in it for their cut of the action, whilst assiduously avoiding getting their own soldiers killed. In return, Washington gets to dress up its wars in “multilateralist” drag, and conduct foreign policy without congressional oversight. One notes the recent agreement with Afghan “President” Hamid Karzai, signed by the President on his recent trip to Kabul, will be a major topic of discussion at the Chicago conclave: does anyone but me find it odd that the administration is taking a treaty to NATO for approval before deigning to submit it for the consideration of the US Senate?
I suspect the Colonel would have found it odd, too, but he’s been dead since 1955, the year the Warsaw Pact was founded and the cold war began in earnest. His warnings against a promiscuous internationalism, derided as “isolationism” by both the “progressive” left and the “New Right” of William F. Buckley, Jr., passed into history, where they are unlikely to be recovered by today’s anti-NATO protesters. Yet one likes to think McCormick’s ghost will be looking down at them from the height of the Tribune Tower, and saying: “Didn’t I tell you so?”
Read more by Justin Raimondo
- Foreign Policy Theater of the Absurd – May 6th, 2012
- Promises to Keep – May 3rd, 2012
- Bringing the ‘War on Terrorism’ Home – May 1st, 2012
- China’s ‘Reformist’ Crooks – April 29th, 2012
- Marco Rubio and Our Wretched Destiny – April 26th, 2012
MvGuy
May 8th, 2012 at 9:47 pm
the US. taxpayers MONEY…….. that is given to NATO ….. does NOT need to be appropriated through congress. There is NO debate in congress about our NATO "assessment." It is NOT part of the budget, and all payments to NATO are "off budget"…. Our NATO assessments are, for accounting purposes, treaty obligations. NATO has become an unaccountable back door outflow of taxpayers money for wars which the taxpayers Congressional Representatives have NOT declared.. NATO is one more end run around the constitution that the founders never envisioned…!!!
JSD
May 9th, 2012 at 3:34 am
Nothing new about taxpayers footing the bill for undeclared wars. Think that concept is as American as apple pie and baseball now. Given how utterly they have abdicated their responsibilities I don't see Congress caring much about the NATO budget. If anything Im surprised we haven't already just stuck NATO, the UN, IDF, IRA (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan), and all of our other economic black holes in the same budget category as medicare, medicaid, and social security.
Dr.Khan
May 9th, 2012 at 4:42 am
In a nutshell'''NATO IS A CLIENT STATE''' of the USA, and that equates it other countries doing same dirty jobs for USG for a buck. Nice JR.
Bruce Richardson
May 9th, 2012 at 4:55 am
Bravo Justin…excellent analysis!
James
May 9th, 2012 at 5:38 am
Wonderful job of weaving two histories into your argument
MichaelKenny
May 9th, 2012 at 7:39 am
Post-cold war NATO serves no European interest, which is why European leaders are unwilling to pay for it or get their soldiers killed for it. NATO's sole purpose is to provide a legal pretext for maintaining US forces and military equipment near to Israel. Thus, unitl the Israel problem is solved, Israel's American supporters will do everything in their power to prop up NATO and since they can't get rid of it, European leaders don't see why they shouldn't take advantage of it.
Tim
May 9th, 2012 at 7:50 am
NATO was never needed. The idea that Russia was about to conquer Western Europe in 1945 was absurd. That is why Gen Lucius Clay was told by Truman to exaggerate the threat from Russia. Truman was told by Senator Vandenburg to "scare the hell out of the American people." Dean Acheson admitted in his memoirs that "Korea saved us." That is the Korean War greased the legislative skids in Congress for Truman's Cold War agenda. Before that there was strong opposition to the idea of permanent American military presence in Europe. President Eisenhower said that if US troops were in Europe 10 years after NATO's founding (1949) the alliance would be a failure.
Execellent aritcle BTW
RickR30
May 9th, 2012 at 8:07 am
What an honor that NATO should visit the city of our dear leader- the nobel peace price winning mulatto!
Those wacky internationalists sure are doing everything they can to prove the conspiracy theorists right. So now some unelected foreigners get to decide what the US military does and they do it all on the dime of US taxpayers.
ANU News.net NATO: The New Holy Alliance
May 9th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
[...] They’re cowering in Chicago, where the NATO summit is scheduled to open on May 20: the security arrangements go well beyond paranoia. They’re telling office workers in buildings adjacent to the site to “dress down,” lest they become identified with the proceedings. A huge “security zone” is being imposed on McCormick Place, where the conclave will take place, and subway riders who must pass under the site will be subjected to pat-downs and other security measures. The airspace above the venue will be restricted, and any planes that pass through it will be promptly shot down. I have no doubt the original McCormick – Col. Robert Rutherford McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune from the 1920s to the mid-fifties – is rolling in his grave as the NATO-ites prepare to convene in the place named for him. The Colonel denounced NATO, on the occasion of its formation, as the instrument of a destructive internationalism, one that would forever entangle us in the feuds and intrigues of a dangerous world: for his pains, he was attacked in The New Republic and even in The Nation (!) for “taking the Soviet line.” As McCormick, along with such notables as Joe Kennedy and Herbert Hoover, warned against the folly of “collective security” embodied by NATO, the editors of The New Republic envisioned a Red Dawn-like future in which the Commie Colossus would sweep across Europe and leap the Atlantic “until the Stalinist caucus in the Tribune Tower would bring out in triumph the first communist edition of the Chicago Tribune.” Now that the Colossus has been downed and the original rationale for NATO no longer exists, the same hysterics are the occasion for any suggestion that America’s international footprint – considerably enlarged by its participation in NATO – be scaled back, Not to worry: new rationales are readily available, and the prosecution of our eternal “war on terrorism” has breathed new life into NATO’s moribund body. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/05/08/nato-the-new-holy-alliance/ [...]
laz
May 9th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Rhetorically, I ask ………….. cui bono???
laz
May 9th, 2012 at 1:38 pm
As a more complete answer to my question posed, I offer:
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Brookings_Announce…
muggles
May 9th, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Another " bravo!" for Justin for this timely article about an otherwise obscure circus put on by the Empire to dupe the intelligencia. NATO should have never existed and has been truly obsolete since 1989. Now its false flag is being used as cover for US/Brit imperialism in the old Great Game hunting grounds of Afghanistan/Pakistan. With much the same result (bloody, expensive failure) as the old British Empire. Yet US media propagandists willing parrot Pentagon doublespeak when they report on "NATO" casualties there. Yeah, Poles, Norweigns and Spaniards are taking the hits… oh, no, they've been long gone.
Once again Justin uses straightforward historical analysis to explain contemporary statist madness. American historical blindness isn't happenstance, it has long been deliberately manufactured by the power elites. But history is there for those willing to learn from it. .
Eric Siverson
May 9th, 2012 at 8:45 pm
I think I like NATO less Than Justin or Mc Cormick . I never could see any diference in NATO or the nazis before them in Yugoslavia . You better believe Russia and China think NATO and NAZI are prety much the same force .
Articles for Thursday: As Usual, Criminal Government Bureaucrats vs.The Rights of Individuals » Scott Lazarowitz's Blog
May 10th, 2012 at 4:14 am
[...] Justin Raimondo: NATO: The New Holy Alliance [...]
Tim
May 10th, 2012 at 4:14 am
If the NATO summit creates such security concerns, why did they choose to hold it in a major metropolitican area. Why not in a rural location where disruptions to normal life would have been much less and security easier to handle? I suppose the summit was a return favor to Mayor Rahm from Obama. I suspect the summit brings with it loads of federal cash for "security" from which Rahm and cronies can take their usual cut. And of course, holding the summit in Chicago gives the government goons the opportunity to perform security theater and thus condition more Americans to being groped, scanned, herded, and ordered about.