[THS] !!! Craig Murray: Israeli Murders, NATO and Afghanistan

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

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