Is this the way to stay relevant in a complicated world? What does the future hold for Nato in Afghanistan and beyond?
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/empire/2010/11/20101124104830147648.html
The above is about the recent Nato conference in Lisbon. You get a great insight into the mind set that seems to compliment the neoliberal economic system. It's basically the armed muscle for global capital's exhortion system.
It's fascinating in a very sick way to listen to these men and women who can not name an enemy or a strategic purpose except in meaningless generalities like terrorism, nuclear proliferation, missile capabilities of untrustworthy powers, war on drugs, and so forth. They talk about protection of their core populations. But what they are really saying is that their mission is to protect their core military and civilian elites and their interests on a global scale.
The idea that Nato seeks stability is laughable. The point to political stability or state building is to secure global capital's interest in whatever region's resources. They say their interests are primarily in the Middle East and Africa. Translation, of course means extraction industries for energy and mining.
Toward the very end, they get down to the problem with the UN which has proved ineffective in protecting EU-US imperial interests. The program concludes with a recommenation to read Orwell's 1984 in order to understand Nato double speak.