Reflections of Fidel :
NATO, world gendarme:
PART TWO
A third agreement on strategic weapons was subsequently signed
between George W Bush and Boris Yeltsin on January 3, 1993, prohibiting
the use of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) with multiple
warheads.
Being thorough in what he says |
It was ratified by the US Senate on January 26, 1993, by a margin of
87 votes to 4.
Russia inherited the science and technology of the USSR - which in
spite of the war and enormous sacrifice was capable of creating a
military power on a level with that of the immense and rich yankee
empire - the victory over fascism, the traditions, the culture and the
glories of the Russian people.
The war on Serbia, a Slavic nation, sunk its teeth hard into the
security of the Russian people, something that no Government could
afford itself the luxury of ignoring.
The Russian Duma - angered by the first Iraq war and that of Kosovo
in which NATO massacred the Serb people - refused to ratify START II and
did not sign that agreement until the year 2000 and, in that case, in an
attempt to save the ABM treaty which, by that date, the yankees weren’t
interested in maintaining.
The United States is trying to use its enormous media resources to
maintain, deceive and confuse world public opinion.
The Government of that country is going through a difficult stage as
a consequence of its military adventures. All the NATO countries without
exception are committed to the Afghanistan war, as are various others in
the world, whose peoples find odious and repugnant the butchery in which
rich and industrialized countries such as Japan and Australia, and other
Third World nations are involved in to a greater or lesser degree.
In deep thought |
What is the essence of the agreement approved in April of this year
by the United States and Russia? Both parties have committed themselves
to reducing the number of the strategic nuclear missiles to 1,550. Not
one word is being said about the nuclear missiles of France, the United
Kingdom and Israel, all of them capable of striking Russia. Not one word
has been said either about tactical nuclear weapons, some of them with
far more power than that which erased the city of Hiroshima.
There is no mention of the destructive and lethal capacity of
numerous conventional weapons, the radio-electric and other weapons
systems into which the United States is channeling its growing military
budget, superior to that of all the other nations of the world put
together. Both Governments know, as many others meeting there do, that a
third world war would be the last.
What kind of illusions can the NATO members create? What is the peace
for humanity derived from that meeting? What benefit can possibly be
expected for the peoples of the Third World, and even for the
international economy?
They cannot even offer the hope that the world economic crisis can be
overcome, or how much longer any improvement would last.
The total public debt of the United States, not only that of central
Government, but the rest of the country’s public and private
institutions, has already risen to a figure that is equal to the world
GDP of 2009, which amounted to $58 trillion.
Did those meeting in Lisbon maybe think to ask themselves where those
fabulous resources came from? Simply, from the economy of all the other
nations in the world, to which the United States handed over pieces of
paper converted into dollar bills which, for 40 years now, unilaterally
ceased having their backing in gold, and now that the value of that
metal is 40 times superior.
That country still possesses its veto within the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Why wasn’t that discussed in Portugal?
The hope of extracting US troops, those of NATO and their allies from
Afghanistan, is an idyllic one. They will have to abandon that country
before the defeated hand over power to the Afghan resistance.
The United States’ own allies are beginning to acknowledge that
dozens of years could go by before that war is over; is NATO prepared to
remain there for all that time? Would the very citizens of each one of
the Governments meeting there allow that? Not to forget that a country
with a very large population, Pakistan, shares a border of colonial
origin with Afghanistan and a none-too insignificant percentage of its
inhabitants.
I am not criticizing Medvedev, he is acting very well in trying to
limit the number of nuclear missiles pointing at his country. Baruck
Obama cannot invent any justification whatsoever for that. It would be
laughable to imagine that that colossal and costly deployment of the
anti-missile nuclear shield is to protect Europe and Russia from Iranian
missiles proceeding from a country which does not even possess a
tactical nuclear weapon. Not even a children’s story book could affirm
that.
Obama has already admitted that his promise to withdraw US soldiers
from Afghanistan could be delayed and that taxes from the wealthiest
contributors are to be immediately suspended. After the Nobel Prize one
would have to grant him the prize for the ‘greatest snake charmer’ ever
to have existed. Taking into account the W Bush autobiography, which has
already become a bestseller, and which some intelligent editor drafted
for him, why didn’t they do him the honour of inviting him to Lisbon?
The extreme right, the “Tea Party” of Europe, would doubtless have been
happy. Fidel Castro Ruz
Taken from CubaDebate - Translated by Granma International
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