Israeli Murders, NATO And Afghanistan

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25596.htm
Israeli Murders, NATO and Afghanistan
By Craig Murray

June 02, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- I was in the British
Foreign and Commonwealth Office for over 20 years and a member of its
senior management structure for six years, I served in five countries
and took part in 13 formal international negotiations, including the
UN Convention of the Law of the Sea and a whole series of maritime
boundary treaties. I headed the FCO section of a multidepartmental
organisation monitoring the arms embargo on Iraq.

I am an instinctively friendly, open but unassuming person who always
found it easy to get on with people, I think because I make fun of
myself a lot. I have in consequence a great many friends among ex-
colleagues in both British and foregin diplomatic services, security
services and militaries.

I lost very few friends when I left the FCO over torture and
rendition. In fact I seemed to gain several degrees of warmth with a
great many acquantances still on the inside. And I have become known
as a reliable outlet for grumbles, who as an ex-insider knows how to
handle a discreet and unintercepted conversation.

What I was being told last night was very interesting indeed. NATO HQ
in Brussels is today a very unhappy place. There is a strong
understanding among the various national militaries that an attack by
Israel on a NATO member flagged ship in international waters is an
event to which NATO is obliged - legally obliged, as a matter of
treaty - to react.

I must be plain - nobody wants or expects military action against
Israel. But there is an uneasy recognition that in theory that ought
to be on the table, and that NATO is obliged to do something robust
to defend Turkey.

Mutual military support of each other is the entire raison d'etre of
NATO. You must also remember that to the NATO military the freedom of
the high seas guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
is a vital alliance interest which officers have been conditioned to
uphold their whole career.

That is why Turkey was extremely shrewd in reacting immediately to
the Israeli attack by calling an emergency NATO meeting. It is why,
after the appalling US reaction to the attack with its refusal to
name Israel, President Obama has now made a point of phoning
President Erdogan to condole.

But the unhappiness in NATO HQ runs much deeper than that, I spoke
separately to two friends there, from two different nations. One of
them said NATO HQ was "a very unhappy place". The other described the
situation as "Tense - much more strained than at the invasion of
Iraq".

Why? There is a tendency of outsiders to regard the senior workings
of governments and international organisations as monolithic. In fact
there are plenty of highly intelligent - and competitive - people and
diverse interests involved.

There are already deep misgivings, especially amongst the military,
over the Afghan mission. There is no sign of a diminution in Afghan
resistance attacks and no evidence of a clear gameplan. The military
are not stupid and they can see that the Karzai government is deeply
corrupt and the Afghan "national" army comprised almost exclusively
of tribal enemies of the Pashtuns.

You might be surprised by just how high in Nato scepticism runs at
the line that in some way occupying Afghanistan helps protect the
west, as opposed to stoking dangerous Islamic anger worldwide.

So this is what is causing frost and stress inside NATO. The
organisation is tied up in a massive, expensive and ill-defined
mission in Afghanistan that many whisper is counter-productive in
terms of the alliance aim of mutual defence. Every European military
is facing financial problems as a public deficit financing crisis
sweeps the continent. The only glue holding the Afghan mission
together is loyalty to and support for the United States.

But what kind of mutual support organisation is NATO when members
must make decades long commitments, at huge expense and some loss of
life, to support the Unted States, but cannot make even a gesture to
support Turkey when Turkey is attacked by a non-member?

Even the Eastern Europeans have not been backing the US line on the
Israeli attack. The atmosphere in NATO on the issue has been very
much the US against the rest, with the US attitude inside NATO
described to me by a senior NATO officer as "amazingly arrogant -
they don't seem to think it matters what anybody else thinks".

Therefore what is troubling the hearts and souls of non-Americans in
NATO HQ is this fundamental question. Is NATO genuinely a mutual
defence organisation, or is it just an instrument to carry out US
foreign policy? With its unthinking defence of Israel and military
occupation of Afghanistan, is US foreign policy really defending
Europe, or is it making the World less safe by causing Islamic
militancy?

I leave the last word to one of the senior NATO officers - who
incidentally is not British:
"Nobody but the Americans doubts the US position on the Gaza attack
is wrong and insensitve. But everyone already quietly thought the
same about wider American policy. This incident has allowed people to
start saying that now privately to each other."

Craig Murray is a human rights activist, writer, former British
Ambassador, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of
Lancaster School of Law. Visit his blog http://www.craigmurray.org.uk