A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #20-25 - N.A.T.O. to exploit. The Atlantic Pact, a history of violence (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

On April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington. In 
July 1948, negotiations had begun, again in Washington, between the five 
states that made up the Western European Union (Great Britain, France, 
the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg), the representatives of the 
United States and Canada. The governments of the five European states 
aimed to involve the United States and Canada in a North Atlantic 
alliance that would have excluded the defeated states of the Second 
World War, Germany and Italy. The government of the United States 
instead aimed at a broader alliance, which would reach as far as the 
Elbe River, and would include, in addition to the western part of 
Germany, then divided with the Soviet occupation of Eastern Germany, 
Italy, Denmark, Norway, Greece and Turkey.

The defensive nature of the treaty was due to the concerns of the US 
administration about a possible Soviet invasion; concerns skillfully 
agitated to force the European states outside the area of influence of 
the USSR to accept the aid provided for by the Marshall Plan and the 
military aid, connected to the Atlantic Pact in the making. The US 
administration, with the stipulation and the enlargement of the Atlantic 
Pact, therefore aimed at different and partly contradictory objectives 
in Europe: to preserve the capitalist mode of production, infusing it 
with new vigor, to attenuate the effects of the class conflict, to calm 
the traditional contrasts between the ruling groups of the various 
states, at the same time to prevent Europe, once economically back on 
its feet, from opposing the USA and therefore maintaining a hegemonic 
position for the latter.

The reactionary role of the new treaty is particularly highlighted by 
the events that led the Italian government to sign it. In order to 
achieve the planned enlargement, the US government needed the 
governments of the European states that it wanted to add to the five of 
the WEU to make a formal request to Washington, necessary to overcome 
the hostilities present both among the WEU states and in the US 
Congress. An important role was played by the Italian ambassador to 
Washington, Alberto Tarchiani, who made several visits to Italy to push 
the Italian government, led by Alcide De Gasperi, to formulate this 
request. In one of these visits Tarchiani obtained an audience with Pope 
Pacelli, Pius XII, to convince the head of the Catholic Church to act 
against the neutralism and pacifism that were widespread in large 
sectors of the Catholic movement and the Christian Democrats. The mood 
of the majority of the Italian popular masses, a few years after the end 
of a disastrous war, was decidedly oriented towards the defense of peace 
and neutrality, even among those who voted for the Christian Democrats 
or the other government parties. Within the privileged classes, however, 
pro-Atlantic sentiments were widespread, largely because the military 
alliance was seen as a defense against possible social transformations; 
partly, moreover, in sectors linked to the war industry and military 
circles, adherence to the alliance was seen as a way to overcome the 
provisions of the peace treaty regarding rearmament. In this situation, 
the Pope decided to send a radio message on the occasion of the Catholic 
holiday of Christmas 1948 in which, after having stated that every war 
of aggression was a crime and that defense against an unjust aggression 
was legitimate, he supported the need for solidarity of nations with the 
one attacked. An intervention that silenced the opposition of the 
left-wing Christian Democrats to the planned alliance.

From its inception, therefore, the North Atlantic Treaty has brought 
together in a single organization the states that still maintained a 
vast colonial empire, such as Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, 
Belgium and Portugal. It is significant that even the French departments 
of Algeria, until independence, were covered by the Pact. Furthermore, 
over the years the Treaty has always increased the character of internal 
control. Starting from the mid-1950s, pre-existing structures have been 
coordinated, with the aim of creating a parallel security structure. The 
network was called "Stay-Behind" and had branches in almost all NATO 
countries, including Greece, Belgium, France, Germany and the 
Netherlands. As for Italy, the structure was called Gladio and was born 
in 1956, thanks to an agreement between the CIA and the Italian secret 
services: the CIA would supply Gladio with money, weapons, explosives; 
many neo-fascist exponents would join Gladio and it would be a structure 
oriented to countering more than a Soviet invasion, the forces of the 
labor movement and possible street riots.

To this we must add the theories on revolutionary warfare and 
psychological warfare developed in France between the end of the 
Indochina War and the beginning of the Algerian War (1953-1957). This is 
a doctrine that combines extreme repressive aspects, such as torture, 
with propaganda and provocative action. This doctrine has been adopted 
by numerous NATO member states and also adopted outside the European 
continent, such as in Latin America, where French theorists of 
revolutionary war have recycled themselves as consultants to military 
dictatorships. In Europe, it is worth mentioning the coup d'état in 
Greece, led by a group of intermediate officers with the support of the 
United States, to prevent the advent of a center-left government.

In Italy too, the strategy of tension and the resulting state massacres 
were favored by the existence of the Gladio structure and inspired by 
the doctrine of revolutionary war, with the aim of stopping the mass 
movement that developed in 1968-69.

Today, NATO has largely exceeded the limits of a defensive alliance, 
with interventions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1993), Kosovo (1999), 
Afghanistan (2003), Iraq (2004), the Gulf of Aden (2009), Libya (2011), 
and Syria (2012). In addition to studying new forms of control of 
popular movements within the country, the NATO apparatus has proven to 
be one of the most efficient tools in the hands of governments allied 
with Anglo-American imperialism to maintain economic, political, and 
military control of the world.

Tiziano Antonelli

https://umanitanova.org/n-a-t-o-per-sfruttare-il-patto-atlantico-una-storia-di-violenza/
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