FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 12, 2023
Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | [email protected]
CODEPINK’s Statement on 2023 NATO Summit
NATO is a Warfare Alliance and Should Be Dissolved
At the NATO Summit in Lithuania, President Biden referred to NATO as “anchors for global security.” Yet, decades after NATO was established we still live in a dangerous and polarized time of never-ending wars. NATO has proven it is not an anchor but rather a catalyst for war on behalf of the US empire.
“NATO is a dangerous military alliance that, despite assurances to the contrary, expanded to Russia’s border to provoke a confrontation that now finds us mired in a proxy war that could lead to World War III,” warns Marcy Winograd, coordinator of CODEPINK Congress and co-chair of the Peace in Ukraine Coalition.
CODEPINK recognizes that the future of Ukraine, Russia, the Global South, and the entire world depends on a diplomatic resolution to this war. NATO has never been a force for peace and never will be. The war-hungry organization has shunned all attempts at peace talks and diplomacy.
The future of the planet depends on the dismantlement of NATO. Our common enemy is the climate crisis. We are living in a critical time that demands we invest all resources to address climate change. We see tens of billions of dollars being funneled into escalating the Russia-Ukraine war, when instead should be spent alleviating global poverty. To mobilize a global effort to address the climate crisis and wealth inequality, we must end all wars. We need food, not bombs. We need healthcare, not warfare. We need climate relief, not perpetual killing.
NATO’s modus operandi is war; it is not a defensive alliance as it claims. NATO invaded Yugoslavia in 1999 without a mandate from the UN Security Council. NATO waged a 20-year war in Afghanistan, leaving the people dirt poor and back in the hands of the Taliban. NATO illegally toppled the government of Libya in 2011. Now, NATO has its sights set on China. They built an Asia-Pacific military alliance with South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand to counter China.
“Without NATO, Europe could build its own security architecture to address the security concerns of all stakeholders, including Russia. Without NATO, we in the U.S. would be in a better position to build peaceful relations with China. Without NATO, the world would be a safer place,” says Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK and author of War in Ukraine.
Next year, the NATO summit will be in Washington DC to mark NATO’s 75th anniversary. CODEPINK calls for a global peace movement to say 75 years of nuclear proliferation, war and gifts to military contractors is enough! Demilitarize the world, dissolve NATO.
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