What is NATO Doing in Afghanistan?

NATO, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Pakistan

By FAHEEM HUSSAIN | Counterpunch, June 6, 2008

What is NATO doing in Afghanistan? What are the true aims of NATO intervention in the region? These are the questions that I mean to address in this article. To understand what is happening in Afghanistan one has to go back to the attack on Yugoslavia by NATO forces in February 1999.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, NATO lost its raison d'être given that Western Europe and the United States were no longer threatened by an invasion from Eastern Europe. NATO thus had the choice between disbanding itself or developing a new reason for its existence. This gave the opportunity to the United States to reshape NATO in ways that would serve its imperial interests. It is very important to remember that its founding documents clearly say that NATO was a defensive organisation, which would go into action only when one of its member states was attacked.

The first step in the US strategy of changing the nature of NATO was the attack on Yugoslavia on the pretext of preventing ethnic cleansing. Clearly Yugoslavia had not attacked a NATO member state thus excluding a response from NATO. Whatever one can say about Kosovo, it was internationally recognised as an integral part of Yugoslavia (and is still internationally recognised as part of Serbia) and Yugoslavia did not attack or even threaten a NATO member state.

As was clear right from the beginning of the Kosovo crisis in the 90s, and as was confirmed at the NATO 50th Anniversary Celebrations in Washington in April 1999, one of the aims of the United States in attacking Yugoslavia at that time on the pretext of preventing ethnic cleansing in Kosovo was to present to the European states a fait accompli as an example of the future role of NATO as an offensive organisation whose aim was to act as the world’s policeman, or more rightly thug, in the defence of perceived United States interests. It was clear that the US was intent on provoking a war with Yugoslavia and its subsequent bombardment.

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