We should also withdraw from NORAD which is fast becoming an excuse for BMD and the weaponization of space. It was also a colossal failure during 9/11 because it is under American command.
Instead we should take the Third Way and join the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Which met in Cuba this weekend.
Representatives of regional groups advocate revitalizing the NAM
An old bulwark against both US and Soviet Imperialism, Canada's involvement would go along way to further legitimizing NAM and give it the Social Democratic Internationalist/Multilaterialst voice it needs. This could only be done by an NDP government. NAM is a legitimate international alliance recognized by the UN. And our historic recognition of Cuba shows that a Third Way was and is possible.
At the very least we sahould attend NAM conferences as an observer.
Cuba has scored international notice by hosting the NAM conference.
With the help of ally Hugo Chavez, the country kicked-off an effort to revitalize the 116-member NAM organization and transform it into a force countering U.S. predominance in the world.
Despite the usual American jingoist reporting on the conference as being a rogues gallery of Americas enemies, that is far from what NAM was and is historically. It acted as a third way between competing Imperialisms during the Cold War. And today its revival will insure that the US. cannot act as the sole Imperialist superpower.
Cuban President Fidel Castro, right, met United Nations Secretary General Koffi Annan in a Havana hospital room on Thursday. (Juventud Rebeld/Associated Press)
Nonaligned Movement supports Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia
The 92-page declaration also broadly condemned terrorism, with exceptions and asserted the right of all countries – Cuba and Venezuela were mentioned – to determine their own form of government.
And while declaring democracy to be a universal value, the movement said no one country or region should define it for the whole world. The leaders mentioned Venezuela and Cuba in particular as they asserted the right of all countries to determine their own form of government. The statements, many of which contain veiled criticisms of the U.S., were to be approved by unanimous consent after another round of speeches Saturday night by leaders of the Nonaligned Movement.
“No one in the Nonaligned Movement thinks that the United States is responsible for all the problems, but many think that it is for some,”
Raul joined numerous U.S. foes who said a bellicose America had made the world more dangerous.
“The United States spends one billion dollars a year in weapons and soldiers,” he said. “To think that a social and economic order that has proven unsustainable could be maintained by force is simply an absurd idea.”
Many demanded that the United Nations take action against U.S. veto power in the security council. “The U.S. is turning the security council into a base for imposing its politics,” Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad complained. “Why should people live under the nuclear threat of the U.S.?”
The document supports Iran's position while encouraging Iran to continue cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency. North Korea Parliament leader Kim Yong Nam claimed his communist nation “would not need even a single nuclear weapon if there no longer existed
U.S. threat,” and said U.S. financial sanctions have “driven the situation into an unpredictable phase.”
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan agreed that the security council must be more responsive to less powerful countries. “The Security Council must reform, for the sake of the developing world, and for the sake of the United Nations itself,'' Annan told the Nonaligned leaders. “The perception of a narrow power-base risks leading to an erosion of the U.N.'s authority and legitimacy, even, some would argue, its neutrality and independence. I have in the past described this as a democracy deficit.”
The Nonaligned Movement was formed in 1961 to establish a neutral third path in a world divided by the United States and the Soviet Union. Cuba last hosted the group in Havana 27 years ago.
The world has changed dramatically since then, but Annan said its collective mission is more relevant than ever: promoting democracy, protecting human rights and developing civil societies. Many leaders said their group will be stronger with Fidel Castro as the movement's president, but it's unclear whether the 80-year-old Castro will recover enough from intestinal surgery to guide the group for the next three years until Egypt takes over.
SEE:
Cuba
Latin America
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
NAM, Cuba, Anan, Castro, Nonalignedmovement, NDP, NATO, NORAD, Politics, UN, ColdWar, USSR, USA, Thirdway
No comments:
Post a Comment