One for All, All For One

Swinging their batons with vigor, the Chicago police drive protestors back and away from the heavily guarded building where NATO ministers are meeting. The footage I watched aired on Democracy Now and in addition to the crowd scenes showed veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions tossing their medals in the street; a few of them apologized to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan for destroying their respective countries.

NATO, lest we forget forget, is the acronym of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, conceived in the aftermath of World War II to contain Soviet expansionist designs in Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union is long defunct but NATO lives on as the military arm of the global 1%, active in conflicts far from its headquarters in Brussels.

The United States funds an inordinate share of NATO’s military budget, and in return NATO provides legitimacy, of sorts, for our invasion and decade-long occupation of Afghanistan. Under NATO’s aegis, the United States can claim it isn’t acting unilaterally. The claim is BS and cannot stand scrutiny (everyone knows who calls the shots and runs the show), but it allows our politicians to salve their consciences and sleep easier at night, as well as making it possible for our less-than-enthusiastic partners to convince their constituents that when it comes to NATO, it’s one for all and all for one.

The American public is overwhelmingly opposed to the war in Afghanistan and beginning to understand the staggering costs in blood and treasure, multiplying year after year with no end in sight, despite what the president says, but the political class remains immune to the public will. Popular sentiment against the war is present, but not focused enough to force politicians to pay attention. It’s often said that politics is really about distribution – who gets what, when, and how much – and it’s clear that in the United States the military-security complex is first in line, exempt from austerity fever, and ever and always sacrosanct.

 Even in a depression we find money for wars, for bombs, for aircraft, for ships, while the growing needs of citizens for affordable health care, decent jobs, education and public infrastructure are ridiculed as unaffordable “entitlement” programs that must be trimmed or sacrificed.

In this era of austerity and debt hysteria we can even find $70 million to hand to Israel for missile defense. What could $70 million buy here in our own nation, where so many are struggling? We can’t even debate the question because to do so is to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy, and in contemporary America, dissent is verboten, a lesson delivered to the Chicago protestors at the business end of a police baton.