Jozef Bossuyt | Communist Party of Belgium
PALESTINE / ARAB COUNTRIES / UKRAINE / KOREA / CHINA : 5 ANTI-NATO WAR FRONTS
World War III has begun. It was planned, launched, organized, financed, coordinated and armed by NATO, the main instrument of US imperialism. The NATO war is one war, which is taking place on 5 fronts: Ukraine-Donbas, Palestine, Arab Countries, Korea, China-Taiwan.
In response to the genocidal attack by the fascist state Israel in October 2023, a new―fifth―front is opened from Arab countries as Yemen.
Officially, Israel, Ukraine, South Korea and Taiwan are not part of NATO. In fact, however, these regimes are implementing NATO’s unified policy. But, NATO is losing allies and losing the war.
Even it is losing the support of the people within the USA themselves.
The students of US universities, (even of elite universities) revolt against the Gaza genocide of Israel and demand from president Biden to stop his support of Israel and US capital to stop to invest in enterprises linked with the Israeli occupation policy. They refer to the mass struggle in 1968 in Vietnam, that forced the US to withdraw their occupation troops and leave the country. The “democrat” Biden has no other answer than repression. On April 30th the police attacked the campus of Columbia University, then peacefully occupied by students in tents, and arrested hundreds of students. The same happened in New York City College and the University of California Los Angeles, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and the University of Texas.
Against this NATO war offensive, the anti-imperialist coalition, built around China, the DPR of Korea and Russia is gaining allies all over the world.
PALESTINE
In the aftermath of 2023, October 7, NATO defense ministers invited Israeli Defense Minister Yoaf Galant to a video conference. The terrorist and genocidal state of Israel is not officially a member of NATO. But Israel has the status of an “individual partnership” with NATO and even has an office at NATO headquarters in Brussels. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the conference that “NATO condemns the terrorist attack (by Hamas), that Israel has the right to defend itself.” Several NATO countries have made it clear that they will support Israel in a practical way. This support consists mainly of the supply of American weapons to Israel. Planes operated by the Israeli airline ELAL commute between the United States and Israel and stop in Belgium. The trade unions CNE, UBT, Setca and Transco have called for no arms shipments to be allowed at Belgian airports. We see the same thing in the port of Antwerp. Ships belonging to the Israeli company ZIM, which has a military logistics contract with the Israeli government, pass through it weekly.
(Sources: NATO Alert No. 89 Q4 2023 and Vredes-actie Nov 2023)
On 21 November, 150 students, researchers and staff mobilised at Ghent University (Belgium) to take a stand in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. They call for a boycott and an end to all collaborations with Israeli universities, companies and governments that support the genocide. In particular, consideration is given to whether the exchange of high-tech projects contributes to the development of weapons in Israel.
ARAB COUNTRIES
Since the start of the Israel genocide campaign against Gaza in October 2023, more and more the Arab countries have taken position against US-imperialism and joined actively the anti-imperialist anti-NATO war alliance. This is a new phase in the anti-Nato war struggle.
YEMEN
In protest against Israel’s genocide, Yemen’s army has been blockading ships delivering equipment to Israel in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait since December. This strait separates Djibouti and Eritrea, and ends in the Red Sea, towards the Suez Canal. This route is strategic for the transport of oil and gas. Ships have been captured and attacked by ships and drones, backed in technology by Iran. The government of Yemen (north) is called Ansar Allah (Supporters of God). It brings together several peoples, including the Houthi people.
This front has expanded through Yemen, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon.
The U.S. military has 57,000 troops in the region, but is losing one by one its allies there.
IRAQ
In protest of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a drone in Iraq wounded three U.S. servicemen at the U.S. military airbase in the city of Erbil on Dec. 25. A few hours later, the U.S. military attacked various cities in Iraq. The Iraqi government called the U.S. attacks “a hostile act that damages bilateral relations” and in which civilians were also injured.
JORDAN
On the weekend of January 27-28, a drone strike killed three U.S. service members in Jordan. President Joe Biden vowed to “respond to this attack.”
LEBANON
Israeli airstrikes hit Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on February 26, 2024.
The quiet conflict between Hezbollah on Lebanese territory and the Israeli army on the other side of the border since the aftermath of October 7 has gone beyond the border area.
On Tuesday, February 27, northern Israel was hit by the largest number of rockets ever fired from Lebanon since the start of the war―102 in the space of a day.
Since 7 October, 3,000 rockets have been fired into Israeli territory, as well as 620 anti-tank missiles.
Hezbollah has conditioned the cessation of its operations against Israel, in support of Hamas, on the cessation of hostilities in the Palestinian enclave.
UKRAINE
The NATO-Ukraine Council met on Wednesday, January 10, 2024. NATO allies have already provided Ukraine with a wide range of air defense systems, and on January 10, they reaffirmed their determination to further strengthen Ukraine’s defenses. Through NATO, allies are buying up to 1,000 Patriot air defense missiles to replenish their stockpiles while continuing to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses. Germany has recently provided Ukraine with Patriot and Skynex air defense systems, as well as additional missiles for IRIS-T air defense, and the United Kingdom is sending about 200 air defense missiles to Ukraine. On 10 January, NATO allies made it clear that they would continue to provide Ukraine with major military, economic and humanitarian assistance, and many NATO allies presented plans to provide billions of euros in additional capabilities in 2024. The meeting took place at ambassadorial level and was convened at the request of Ukraine. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg chaired the Council. The NATO ambassadors and invited Sweden were briefed via videoconference by Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk, commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, and Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Oleksii Serhieiev. The NATO-Ukraine Council was established at the NATO summit in July 2023 and serves as a forum for consultation, decision- making and joint activities between NATO and Ukraine.
KOREA
NATO was founded on April 4, 1949. Since its inception, NATO has never been Nordic or Atlantic, but an instrument for the perpetual consolidation of the world colonial system and the global hegemony of US imperialism. NATO’s first war began a year after its founding, in Korea. In 1950, seven NATO countries (including Belgium) invaded Korea under the flag of the United Nations. In that war, they killed 4 million Koreans. This war is still going on. There was an armistice in 1953, but never a peace agreement, the U.S. refused to sign one.
NATO and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) have been formally cooperating since 2005. Since 2012, cooperation between NATO and the Republic of Korea has continued under an individual partnership and cooperation programme. Currently, the cooperation is led by a tailor-made partnership programme agreed between NATO and the Republic of Korea in July 2023. In November 2022, the Republic of Korea established a diplomatic mission to NATO. Since 2021, the Republic of Korea has participated in NATO’s annual cyber defense exercise, Locked Shields. It also cooperates with the Alliance at NATO’s Centre of Excellence for Cooperative Cyber Defence in Tallinn, Estonia.
At the 2021 NATO Summit in Brussels, NATO Allies reaffirmed NATO-Korea’s practical cooperation. This is confirmed in NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept, the Alliance’s bottom-up policy document, which states that it wants to confront China and Russia. From 2010 to 2013, the Republic of Korea, as part of the NATO-led International Force in Afghanistan, led 470 military personnel in Parwan Province, to strengthen the provincial government’s capacity in health, education, rural development, and governance. The Republic of Korea has also contributed $319 million to the NATO-managed Afghan National Army (ANA) Trust Fund. In 2020, the Republic of Korea co-chaired the ANA Trust Fund.
Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has participated in the last two NATO summits. On August 18, 2023, the JAROKUS Pact between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea was announced at Camp David, USA. The pact provides for annual joint military exercises by the U.S., Japan and Korea.
CHINA
In China, the National Liberation War, led by Mao Zedong, liberated mainland China from the occupation of Japanese imperialism on October 1, 1949, and began the socialist revolution and the transformation of the country into a socialist country. Chiang Kai Shek’s Kuomintang, which has been backed by the U.S. since 1945, retreated to the island of Taiwan, along with the country’s gold and dollar reserves and tens of thousands of troops. From 1950 to 1979, U.S. armies (in 1958 there were more than 9,000 U.S. troops) occupied Taiwan as a base for attacks on the Chinese mainland. In 2017, the “U.S. National Strategy” defined China as a “long-term strategic adversary.” In 2019, the NATO summit in London declared that “the alliance must respond to the challenge of China as an alliance”. The NATO 2030 report then formulated “the need to tackle the Chinese challenge”. Those who follow football know that “tackles” often result in the opponent being carried off the field and eliminated from the game.
In practice, this was reflected in the visit of Nancy Pelosi, leader of the US House of Representatives, to Taiwan, where she expressed US support against China. This manifests itself in the supply of American weapons to Taiwan, a country that the US does not even officially recognize, and that no one recognizes. On Oct. 28, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen confirmed that U.S. military personnel are present in Taiwan and train Taiwanese military personnel there.
To achieve peace in the world, the Communist Party of Belgium appeals:
NATO out from Belgium!
Belgium out from NATO!
Dissolution of NATO!