[fse-esf] U.S.-Poland sign AMD deal.

[Mikael Book]

Merlin, 

thanks for keeping the ESF blog, and for pointing to the article by Simon
Jenkins in "The Guardian", which is yet another positive example of how
the US neocons fail in putting their story through in Europe.  You ask for
mobilization against the missile deployment in Poland. I suppose you mean
street action, and perhaps a peace camp near the deployment site? And of
course it would be fine with more actions of that kind. ( The "European
Peace Action", for instance, is already mobilizing, at least judging from
the program of the ESF.) However, we also need to mobilize our own brains
to build a strategy against the new cold war. The strategy must be a
continuation of the END movement (1980-1987), which united a lot
(millions) of people, from the Atlantic to the Urals, around its vision of
a nuclear-free Europe. 

The END movement squarely opposed both military blocs. We should do the
same. Thus, if Russian generals consider re-arming their Baltic fleet with
nuclear warheads (as Sunday Times reported 17 August), then we should not
fail to call it sheer madness. Correspondingly, Mr Robert Cooper, who is
the right hand of the High Representative for the Common Foreign and
Security Policy and the Secretary-General of both the Council of the
European Union and the Western European Union, seems to be in acute need
of psychiatric care. In "The Guardian" of 22 January 2008, Mr Cooper is
quoted as saying: "Maybe we are going to use nuclear weapons before anyone
else, but I'd be wary of saying it out loud".
 

A couple of days ago, I noted: "There shall be no new Cold War but
a non-militant federation called "The European Union", which includes
Russia, Ukraine and Georgia, and bans all weapons of mass destruction from
its territory, starting with the nukes of the present EU - the French and
British ones." 

Today, I am delighted to see that John Palmer (the veteran journalist, who
used to report about the END movement in the 1980s), writes:

"In this situation, however, the EU could yet make a real difference to
the long-term future for Russia and for Russia's relations with its
neighbours and with Europe as a whole. But for this to happen the EU will
have to show far greater unity in deciding and executing its "common
foreign and security policy". It will also have to come up with a
long-term strategy for bringing the EU, its eastern neighbours (including
Ukraine and Georgia) and Russia into some wider pan-European community
based not just on traditional cooperation but some forms of collective,
democratic decision-making as pioneered by the EU itself.

One idea I have proposed in a recent paper for Sussex University's
European Institute is for a "United European Commonwealth" which would
commit all interested members of the current non-EU Council of Europe to
collective decision-making on a limited range of key issues. These might
be based on the proposed agenda for the badly stalled EU/Russia
cooperation agreement: a common economic area, common standards of justice
and freedom, common research policies and closer cooperation over energy
and security."

This is close to what I noted above. One must only regret that Mr
Palmer does not make clear that one of those "key issues" has to be
nuclear disarmament. As long as Britain, France and Russia keep their
annihilation arsenals on earth, in the seas and in space, and target each
other with missiles, and build missile shields to achieve first strike
capability, there can be no "European Union" worth its name.

I stop here, in order not to waste your precious time. Besides, I already
wrote more on these matters yesterday and earlier today in "Spinelli's
Footsteps", see the article "There shall be no new cold war", Parts 1-3,
http://blog.spinellisfootstep.info/  

Last, but not least, consider this:

'Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash
Just what do you think I got to lose
I'm gonna leave you
With the backlash blues
You're the one will have the blues
Not me, just wait and see''
- from Backlash Blues by Langston Hughes, Nina Simone
 
- Mikael

Mikael Böök * book at kaapeli.fi * gsm +358(0)-44 5511 324 * 
http://www.kaapeli.fi/book/  * http://blogi.kaapeli.fi/book/ *
http://blog.spinellisfootsteps.info/


Merlin wrote:

> Any mobilisation in Poland, elsewhere on this?
> http://openesf.net/projects/esf-activists-news-network/blog/