Pete Cannell, Stop the
War Coalition,
This week the SNP government has outlined its ‘defence’
proposals in the White Paper.
The background to this is a rampant US imperialism, which
has been involved in almost continuous wars throughout the world. Britain has
been a major prop for US imperialism and has also been involved in many wars,
both in its own direct imperial interests and alongside US imperialism.
The centrality of the British state in NATO is an important
reason for voting ‘Yes’ in the 2014 referendum. NATO was set up by the US in
1949 at the start of the Cold War. It was part of a wider strategy to encircle
the USSR. By militarily uniting the western countries under US control, it
ensured US dominance over Europe. It tied the European powers into support for
a post-Second World War foreign policy that claimed to be pro-democracy and
anti-colonial, but was in fact lethally aggressive. NATO also coordinated
secret special forces operations across Europe to subvert the left and prepare
action against possible left wing governments.
‘Pax America’ came with an implicit price tag that accepted
the US security umbrella. If a country depended on the US for security
protection, it also dealt with the US on trade and commercial matters. NATO was
a key platform in the US plan to reorganise the world economy – to open up the
whole world to US business and to tie it to its political interests much as
possible.
In 1999 NATO extended its field of operations to cover the
whole of Eurasia. Its slogan was, “Out of area or out of business”. In 2003,
NATO took up joint control of operations in the disastrous occupation of
Afghanistan. It was also the command umbrella for Operation Unified Protector,
in the 2011 bombing campaign of Libya.
With regard to nuclear weapons, NATO upholds a ‘First
Strike’ policy. Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands have all unsuccessfully
called for the removal of US nuclear weapons form their countries.
There is a consensus in Scotland for scrapping Trident, but
NATO membership and the SNP government policies outlined in the White Paper
still tie us into a nuclear club.
Next year, the NATO conference will be in Wales. The NATO
conference in Strasbourg was surrounded by razor wire, protestors were strip
searched and beaten up by riot police. The Westminster government will raise
the stakes by hosting this NATO conference in South Wales. It will hide behind
the concept of ‘humanitarian intervention’.
2014 will also be the centenary of the beginning of the
First World War. The government intends to spend £50-60M celebrating this. The
Commonwealth Games are also being linked to the WW1 celebrations. The purpose behind
this will be to encourage support for imperial wars today and to undermine the
‘Yes’ campaign. Yet this was a war in
which 20 million people died. Furthermore, at certain times, more than half the
troops fighting on the British side were from the Indian sub-continent –
something that is usually ignored.
The Stop the War Campaign has launched a ‘No Glory in War’
campaign to counter this. The Jimmy Reid Foundation, Disability History Scotland, Scottish Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom and other organisations are also
planning initiatives – we aim to work together to make this a mass campaign. In
Edinburgh there will be a poetry event, based on the fact that Craiglockhart
acted as a military hospital in WW1. Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon were
both sent there to recuperate. Other events are planned.
CND is planning a big debate on NATO in the new year. There
is a division between those like CND, Trident Ploughshare and STWC which are
opposed to NATO and those who want to fall in behind the SNP government’s
contradictory ‘No to Trident/Yes to NATO’ stance. It would be good if RIC could
send a delegation to this conference.
Discussion
Donny said that it was important to move away from the
official ‘Yes’ campaign focus on independence being better for your pocket.
This can not be guaranteed given the uncertainties of the economy. However,
there could be a ‘peace dividend’ if Trident was scrapped, but this would need
withdrawal from NATO. We needed to highlight the role of the British state and
the military in the world.
Bob agreed that it was impossible to separate opposition to
Trident from opposition to NATO. We also
had to be careful to get the message right. ‘No Glory in War’ suggested we are
pacifist, but there are wars of liberation.
Dave said he would play the devil’s advocate. Pete had said
that NATO and trade went together. An independent Scotland would need to
‘export or die’. Look at the economic mess that neutral Ireland had got itself
into. Furthermore, socialist brotherhood was all well and good, but was it a
viable response. The Scottish Communist Party has already argued that Salmond
is considering the possibility of getting
NATO rents for Faslane, whilst Scottish regiments would be wanted to
fight wars given their reputation. We have to be able to win over people who
think like this to a ‘Yes’ vote. We don’t want to be isolated.
Allan argued that there was no direct link between NATO
membership and trade. Up until 2008 Ireland had had a booming economy without
being a member of NATO. Nor was it the lack of NATO membership that did the
Irish economy in, but its adherence to the neo-liberal model, which both the US
and UK heavily promoted.
In the past not only had the SNP opposed NATO, but Salmond
even stood out against intervention in Bosnia. He was attacked, but this had no
effect on his vote when it came to Westminster of Holyrood, and he was elected
from the conservative Banff and Buchan constituency. What is missing now is a
party publicly opposing NATO, despite the widespread scepticism about NATO
interventions in the world. This has been highlighted by the government’s
failure to get support for an invasion of Syria.
Pat said that RIC was for a ‘Yes’ vote, but not at any
price. RIC was for scrapping Trident, and for a Scotland that isn’t prosecuting
wars across the world. People are
living in misery in a rich Scotland.
Andy pointed to the walk out of a pro-SNP government
delegate who attended the ‘Break-up of the UK’ session at the RIC conference,
when Mary McGregor (RCN) spoke in opposition to the SNP leadership’s stance.
However, she had widespread support, from all the republicans, socialists and
anarchists present.
Paulo argued that the fundamental flaw in Dave’s article was
the use of the word “isolation”. NATO will not like a gap in its North Atlantic
defences resulting from the closure of the Faslane base. However, a peaceful
Scotland would be an example to other countries, and could build a whole new
network of friendship.
Talat argued that opposition to imperialism and wars
energised many delegates to the RIC conference. Furthermore, ‘Jocks’ were
certainly not appreciated in the country her family came from – India. This was
true of all the countries colonised by Britain.
There was also an underlying racist logic about nuclear weapons –
certain countries, white and northern, could be trusted to have them but the
rest of the world can not!
The British Army had a recruitment drive at the university
Freshers’ Fair. Students go on to be officers. However, there are also army
recruiting offices in Princes Street designed to attract poorer young people,
promising them a good career. This is a form of economic conscription - and it
is the same in India. Instead of seeking rental income from military bases, we
should be calling for taxes on the rich.
Ally wanted to change the focus of the discussion. Do we
support armed forces? The existing forces are profoundly undemocratic and
class-based. Sandhurst exists to train the senior officers mainly drawn from
the upper class. In Fettes College. Membership of the Officer Training Corps is
compulsory. These lads will not go on to be squaddies or defuse bombs. There
are places where the tradition is somewhat different. Chavez came form the
officer class in Venezuela, but this pattern is unusual.
How would we structure and democratise a reformed army? Does
everybody contribute to the armed forces? What do we want to see?
Pete replied by saying that opposition to imperial wars was
popular. In his experience on StWC stalls, he had come across squaddies and
their families who were opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some are
more clear-sighted than the general population.
The world is not going to be more stable in the future. NATO
is shifting its axis towards the Far East. It also has forces in every single
African country.
Furthermore, even if NATO did not use its nuclear forces it
still had a great capacity to bring about death and destruction as its recent
interventions showed. So opposition to NATO remained important.
Pete agreed with Ally about the need to have further
discussion about the type of military forces we needed.
The cost of being a nuclear state was very expensive. The
money currently spent on Faslane could be invested green jobs. It is important
that we have answers for the economic as well as ideological reasons given by
nuclear force advocates. Faslane provides a lot of jobs in the Helensburgh
area. Yet the valuable skills currently being used there could be transferred
to green production with some retraining. RIC’s job is to put that on the
agenda.
Lastly, in reply to Bob, the ‘No Glory in War’ campaign is
very specifically about the First World War, and not a generalised political
slogan.
