The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a dangerous, aggressive and outdated alliance with its roots in the cold war. NATO is an imperial and nuclear force. It’s expansion to Russia’s borders, in violation of an agreement between President Bush and Gorbachev is the primary cause of current U.S.-Russian tensions.

Today, US troops and their NATO allies regularly play “war games” along the Russian border, which are experienced as military provocations. One small accident or miscalculation there could lead to the war we all fear.

NATO and the US have waged war together in Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya and today, the U.S., Britain, France and Turkey – all members of the NATO alliance are at war in Syria. President Trump’s erratic stance on NATO has caused further tensions and great unease across an already volatile Europe. The coercive push from United States for European countries to increase their military budgets at the expense of public programs is intensifying existing social pressures emanating from austerity, wealth disparity, war-refugee migration, and aggressive nationalism.

Today, NATO is more likely to start an international nuclear catastrophe than prevent one, which is why NATO must be stopped!

Last year’s summit and counter-summit were held in Warsaw. This year, the meetings will be in Brussels, Belgium, the capitol of the European Union.

Donald Trump will be making the NATO summit his first trip to Europe and thousands of Europeans and international partners are organizing a mass demonstration to let Trump know that he is not welcome outside of the United States.

Join us to hear from UFPJ’s partners and lead organizers of the struggle against NATO, militarism, and US bases in Europe. Learn about how we can support their demands in our communities. Link with our international peace movement allies to say “No to War, No to NATO!”

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Featured Panelists

Reiner Braun Berlin Germany No-to-NATO / No-to War Network, no-to-nato.org Co-Chair of International Peace Bureau, ipb.org Ludo De Brabander Gent, Belgium No-to-NATO Brussels Counter-Summit Organizer,stopnato2017.org Organizer for Vrede, vrede.be Ann Wright Honolulu, Hawaii, USA Col. US Army (Retired) – Worked for NATO subcommand, Allied Forces Central Europe Veterans for Peace, veteransforpeace.org Joseph Gerson Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Director of American Friends Service Committee’s Peace and Economic Security Program, afsc.org Co-Coordinator of Peace & Planet, peaceandplanet.org

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UFPJ Allies @ No To NATO Counter-summit March in Warsaw
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UFPJ No to NATO – No to War Panel at 2016 Left Forum

The post [LISTEN] National No to NATO, No to War! Briefing Call with European Allies appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

Last year, the UFPJ coordinating committee decided to represent our network at the Left Forum 2015 by tabling. We had been too preoccupied with organizing for the Peace and Planet conference, march, and rally to adequately organize any panels, but we did support and promote the panels of our member groups. We tabled all three days, between the Jacobin Magazine and US Labor Against War.

Through the three workshops (not including others we attended) we engaged about eighty-five attendees of the Left Forum. Hundreds of others have already viewed video of our panels’ online live-stream on Facebook.

Another dozen or so people joined the small social meet-and-greet we planned at a nearby lounge to connect with other Peace Movement activists and organizers.

We also met dozens of people who identify as members of UFPJ in conversation between panels, and at the many tables in the conference center lobby.

Overall, it was a meaningful experience for us to connect in person, in one place, with other peace movement leaders and movers to assess the state of our movement and discuss plans for our shared future. It was also made clear to us how necessary it is to have UFPJ as a reasoned and experienced body in a broader Leftist gathering.

You can view video of some of the discussions we had and read background info below.

Thanks to those of you who participated and donated online makes this peace-work possible. Please donate here, to keep our program going in this time of need.

Video

US Militarism’s Expanse and the Need for a Movement to Cut Military Spending and Invest in Human Needs

United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) was formed in 2003, as millions of people around the world said no to the impending U.S. invasion of Iraq. Thirteen years later, despite the fact that we inhabit a war culture and machine with a vast reach and capacity never seen before, UFPJ continues to stand strong in opposition to endless war. It falls upon us as peace activists to inspire American people – and people around the world – to call for an end to war, to protest drone attacks and nuclear weapons modernization, to wage campaigns to cut the military budget, to stand up in our communities to bring attention to the futility of war, and to demand a full focused effort on diplomacy and redirection of resources to meet human needs and protect mother earth. It’s time for the movement for peace and justice to rise again!
Read the accompanying statement here: https://www.unitedforpeace.org/2016/03/02/us-militarisms-expanse-and-the-need-for-an-international-movement-to-cut-military-spending/

The Imperative of Nuclear Disarmament in an Increasingly Dangerous World

We live in an era of fluid, contentious, complicated, provocative and potentially dangerous military geopolitical struggles for power and influence. Almost every month, even every week, we see signs of intensifying military and political tensions between the United States and Russia, especially in regions already marked with strife such as in Syria and Ukraine, and separately between the United States and China, across the South China Sea and North Korea. As all these countries have, between them, over 15,000 nuclear weapons, the possibility of any of these tensions quickly escalating into nuclear war is significant. South Asia continues to be a potential nuclear flashpoint, especially in the region of Kashmir. Instead of trying to reduce the danger from these nuclear weapons, all of these countries are in the process of modernizing or further advancing their nuclear weapons programs. All of this is happening in a world where elites envision and plan for continually escalating competition for increasingly scarce resources. Military planners, in turn, interpret this as a sign of impending armed competition in both conventional and high tech arenas. How should people on the left think about what is happening and how should they organize against these dangerous trends? This panel will discuss these questions, by drawing upon the activist/scholars’ research and their work with local, national and international campaigns to eliminate the dangers of nuclear war.

No to NATO/No to War!

NATO is an imperial alliance. Beyond the ostensible goal of containing the USSR, now Russia, NATO reinforces US interventions across the Middle East and North Africa. With the war against Serbia, NATO began wars violating the UN charter, followed by Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Eight NATO nations are at war in Syria. The Ukraine crisis, with potential nuclear dimensions, is rooted in NATO’s expansion. Violating the commitment not to move NATO closer to Moscow, President Clinton began the expansion to Russia’s borders and new “partnerships” with Ukraine, Georgia, Asia nations and the Global South. Given the history of invasions of Russia, Moscow’s militarized responses to NATO expansion were predictable. July’s NATO summit will be in Warsaw. It will build on President Obama’s commitment to quadruple spending for U.S. Eastern Europe war preparations. Activists from across Europe will demand peaceful alternatives in a counter-summit. Bahman Azad, professor of economics and sociology, serves on the Executive Board of the US Peace Council, active in Veterans For Peace and the International Campaign in Solidarity with the Iranian People’s Green Movement. Joseph Gerson is Director of the American Friends Service Committee’s Peace & Economic Security Program. He serves on the steering committee of the No to NATO/No to War Network, the board of the International Peace Bureau and is Co-Convener of the Peace & Planet Network.

Chair/Facilitator: Jackie Cabasso View Bio

Speakers/Co-Facilitators: Bahman Azad View Bio, Joseph Gerson View Bio

The post Report Back: UFPJ Tackles Forever War & Nuclear/NATO Threat at Left Forum 2016 (Video) appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

The post IVAW: MARCH FOR JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

The post The 99% vs. War & Injustice: Counter-Summit for Peace and Economic Justice Chicago, May 18 – 19, 2012 appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

In a land that’s known as freedom
How can such a thing be fair
Won’t you please come to Chicago
For the help that we can bring

We can change the world

Re-arrange the world
It’s dying … to get better

Crosby, Stills & Nash

NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is holding a summit meeting in Chicago, May 15.-21. 2012. We, peace and justice activists, will gather at a counter summit to voice a new vision of global security and peace.

Join us in Chicago May 18. & 19. 2012 for a counter-summit conference to conceive and help build a more peaceful, economically secure and environmentally sustainable world.

As the majority of the U.S. people know, it’s long past time to end the U.S./NATO war in Afghanistan, bring home all U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and around the world, to end the attacks on Libya and to begin to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction and redirect monies from wars and weapons back to our communities.

Despite its claims, NATO was never a defensive alliance, and since the end of the Cold War has been transformed into global alliance structured to wage “out of area” wars in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, as well as to “contain” China. NATO’s creed is aggressive, expansionist, militarist and undemocratic.

From Yugoslavia to Afghanistan and Libya the US has used NATO to enhance and extend its military, economic and political aims that ensure U.S. and European dominance of the resources, markets and labor of the Global South. It has spread the cost of these adventures to its NATO partners.

While ignoring human needs here at home, the U.S. has spent more than a trillion dollars on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and tens of billions of dollars more each year to maintain hundreds of military bases and nuclear weapons across Europe. Instead of wasting money on NATO, our tax dollars should be used to provide real security by creating green jobs and investing in infrastructure modernization for the 21st century, clean water, education, housing and health care for all.

The crisis of every day life in countries around the globe demands international cooperation based on respect for international law, and national sovereignty, not wars and an escalating global arms race – an arms race of one, driven by the US.

The NATO summit provides an opportunity to join in solidarity with our international counterparts to mount an education campaign to help people across the United States and in other NATO nations understand the true nature of NATO and mobilize to abolish it.

By joining together, we can visibly and nonviolently demonstrate how NATO undermines people’s real security in every dimension of life. As we discuss and demand alternative and life-affirming foreign policies, we will help to build the worldwide movement that opposes NATO and its wars, and create a world of peace, justice and economic prosperity.

Diplomacy, international law, national sovereignty, international collaborations, and nonviolent conflict resolution are the foundations of real, global security.

Help us mobilize activists to come to Chicago to participate in an international conference.

A better, more peaceful, secure and prosperous world is possible.

We demand:

Complete withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan.

Withdrawal of all foreign deployed U.S. troops, bases, nuclear weapons and “missile defenses,”

Substantial reductions in U.S. and NATO military spending to fund our communities and to meet human needs.

Restitution of the UN Charter and International Law as means of resolving international disputes.

Retire NATO!

* Network for a NATO-Free World: Global Peace and Justice (List in formation): American Friends Service Committee-Peace and Economic Security Program, Code Pink, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, Maryknoll Office of Concerns, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Peace Action, United for Peace and Justice, US Labor Against the War, US Peace Council, War Resisters League. Chicago: American Friends Service Committee-Chicago, Code Pink, Greater Chicago Area Peace Action, New New Deal, US Labor Against the War,

*For additional information and to sign onto this call contact: Judith Le Blanc mailto:jleblanc@peace-action.org or Joseph Gerson JGerson@afsc.org

The post Call to Action: Retire NATO, Create Jobs & Fund Peace – Chicago – 18.-19. May 2012 appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.