Arrests at Nato command HQ

[Tinoire]

Brussels - About 500 protestors were arrested on Saturday while trying to break into Nato's military command centre for Europe to protest against nuclear weapons, organisers and police said.
In all up to 55 people managed to enter the compound and three were slightly injured while scaling the fence, but there was no violence, organisers said.


<snip>

Security was particularly tight since the demo came a year after a similar protest at the Kleine Brogel military base in northern Belgium, which was entered by 500 people while 1,117 were arrested.

Nearly 2,200 police and troops backed by helicopters were on hand to keep control of the demonstration, whose organisers wanted to express their opposition to nuclear weapons.

<snip>
Among the others arrested were a number of Belgian politicians, including the president of the Flemish-speaking Spirit party and three deputies from the national parliament.

<snip>

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1435882,00.html

[IndianaGreen]

1. NATO, which was created for self-defense, has turned into an aggressor

and it is rightly viewed by many people as a tool of American imperialism used to maintain US hegemony in Europe.

NATO should have been buried alongside the Warsaw Pact.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

5. Agreed. And there's a certain dem candidate relevant to the discussion.

Stand by for scorn and derision. 10, 9, 8, 7......

[dArKeR]

2. If that happened in the US they'd be shot on the fence and the American

Media Whores would justify it.

[Pastiche423]

3. It gives me hope

that some of our brothers and sisters on this planet realize that war and aggression is wrong and they are trying to do something about it.

[DarkPhenyx]

4. The arrests are a good thing.

They were breaking into a secure facility. Not a very smart thing to be doing. The "protesters" are lucky they didn't get shot.

[IndianaGreen]

6. A facility that is "secured" from whom?

Secured from the people it is supposed to "protect"?

Death to NATO! Let the Europeans get their own security organization, free from American meddling!

The sycophant American press has started to sound the alarm at such prospect:

Ill-conceived European defense alliance gains steam

October 21, 2003

BY JOHN O'SULLIVAN

America's Ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, told the diplomats from other NATO member-states Monday that the United States was increasingly alarmed about the European Union's plans to set up a defense organization separate from NATO. He is expected to deliver the same message to more senior European figures at a meeting of the North Atlantic Council today. If the initial dismissive reactions from Paris and Berlin are any guide, he will be thumping the table and shouting at the top of his voice in the same cause before very long. And the net effect of his protests is likely to be, well, unsubstantial.

For the ESDP (or European Defense and Security Policy, to give its full official title), like most projects of the EU, proceeds according to a tried-and-tested formula. When it was first launched, it was presented as a minor matter -- largely a question of getting the Europeans to pay more for their own defense. Then, when it emerged that the Europeans were in fact paying less for their own defense so that the ESDP would compete with NATO for the same scarce military funds, it was defended on the grounds that it would be clearly subordinate to NATO. And now that it is well advanced as a project, its main EU supporters declare that it must have a separate strategic headquarters and operational planning capability.

American protests at these methods -- known as strategic deception when employed against enemies -- are more than justified. And there are good reasons for the United States to be alarmed also about the likely direction of the ESDP.

At a time when European governments are spending a miserly average of 1.5 percent of gross domestic product on joint defense and when there is a pressing need for an expensive missile defense shield against Iran and other rogue states, France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg (the so-called "chocolate soldiers") now propose diverting scarce funds to establish a rival military organization to NATO. Even if the sums are small, the priorities are eloquent. They make plain that the mere fact of EU cooperation is more important than actually defending the European continent.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/osullivan/cst-edt-osul21.html

[ablbodyed]

7. Europe shoud set up a force....

Something to counter the monstrous threat to world peace of the US under the present duck-anuses. The fact that we spend as much on our military as the REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED is crazy. When will we wake up?

[DarkPhenyx]

9. What do you suggest they do?

Just off the top of your head. I'f it's a good suggestion write it up and send it in. Maybe they'll adopt it.

[DarkPhenyx]

8. Secured from idiots who...

...think that breaking into a secure area is a valid form of protest. Those people and others yes.