Bob Djurdjevic
TRUTH IN MEDIA
Phoenix, Arizona
e-mail: bobdj@djurdjevic.com

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NATO vs. Free Europe

A NEW "IRON CURTAIN" HAS DESCENDED UPON EUROPE

PHOENIX, Mar. 14 - Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Britain's wartime prime minister, toured the United States with President Harry Truman in 1946, shortly after WW II ended.He delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech at the Westminster College in Missouri, after accepting an honorary degree.

Here's the gist of an abridged, and a MINIMALLY edited, version of that 1946 speech which Mr. Churchill might deliver today (1999 - now that NATO is de facto present in Bosnia and in Macedonia, and is enroute to taking over Kosovo?) to the St. Petersburg University dignitaries at the beautiful St. Peter and St. Paul cathedral, across the river Neva from the Winter Palace:

"From Belfast on the Irish Sea, to Trieste in the Adriatic; to Budapest on the Danube; to Istanbul on the Black Sea - an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent.And its name is NATO."

"I am glad to come to Saint Petersburg this afternoon, and am complimented that you should give me a degree. The names 'St. Peter and St. Paul' are somehow familiar to me. I seem to have heard of them before. Indeed, it was at London's St. Paul cathedral that I received a very large part of my education in politics, dialectic, rhetoric, and one or two other things. In fact we have both been educated at the same, or similar, or, at any rate, kindred establishments.

The Russian Federation stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the Russian democracy. For, the primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future.If you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done, but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here now, clear and shining for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the after-time. It is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall guide and rule the conduct of the freedom-loving peoples in peace, as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement.

Now I come to the second danger - of these two marauders which threatens the cottage, the home, and the ordinary people-namely, tyranny.We cannot be blind to the fact that the liberties enjoyed by individual citizens throughout Free Europe are not valid in a considerable number of western countries, some of which are very powerful.

In these countries state control is enforced upon the common people by various kinds of all-embracing police governments, like that of the Clinton administration in Washington, for example.

The power of the state is exercised without restraint, either by dictators or by compact oligarchies, operating through a privileged party and a political police. It is not our duty at this time, when difficulties are so numerous, to interfere forcibly in the internal affairs of countries which we have not conquered in war.But we must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man, including those which found their most famous expression in the Russian Declaration of Independence.

All this means that the people of any country have the right, and should have the power by constitutional action, by free unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change the character or form of government under which they dwell; that freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom.

Here are the title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage, every home. Here is the message of the British and Russian peoples to mankind. Let us preach what we practice-let us practice what we preach. Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organization, will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the freedom-loving peoples.

But a shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Cold War victory. Nobody knows what the United States of America and its NATO international organization intends to do in the immediate futureOr what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies.I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant American people, and for my Cold War comrades, Ronald Reagan and George Bush.There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain - and I doubt not here also, towards all American peoples, and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships.

We understand the American need to be secure on her frontiers by the removal of all possibility of a Marsians' aggression. We welcome America to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome constant, frequent and growing contacts between the American people and the people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty however, for I am sure you would wish me to state the facts as I see them to you, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.

From Belfast on the Irish Sea, to Trieste in the Adriatic; to Budapest on the Danube; to Istanbul on the Black Sea - an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Europe.Brussels, Berlin, Paris, London, Copenhagen, Oslo, Rome, Madrid, Lisbon, Athens, Prague, Budapest, Warsaw... all these famous cities and the populations around them lie, in what I must call, the NATO sphere. And all are subject in one form or another, not only to the American influence, but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Washington.

The American-supported Muslim and Croat governments, for example, have been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon the Serbs' native lands in the Balkans, and mass expulsions of hundreds of thousands of Serbs on a scale grievous and undreamed-of has taken place. The fascist parties, which were very small in all these European states, have been raised to preeminence and power far beyond their numbers, and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Russia, there is no true democracy.

The safety of the world requires a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast. It is from the quarrels of the strong parent races in Europe that the world wars we have witnessed, or which occurred in former times, have sprung. Twice in our own lifetime we have seen Russia, against her wishes and her traditions, against arguments, the force of which it is impossible not to comprehend, drawn by irresistible forces into these wars - in time to secure the victory of the good cause. But only after frightful slaughter and devastation had occurred. Twice Russia has had to send several millions of its young men to find the war. But now war can find any nation, wherever it may dwell between dusk and dawn. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a grand pacification of Europe, so that Free Europe may spread from the east to the west of the Continent.And so that foreign invaders and tyrants who sponsored NATO may be pushed across the sea from whence they came.That I feel is an open cause of policy of very great importance.

In front of the iron curtain which lies across Europe are other causes for anxiety. In Italy, the Communist Party is seriously hampered by having to support Bill Clinton's claims to Albania, the former Italian territory at the bottom of the Adriatic. Nevertheless the future of Italy hangs in the balance.

Again one cannot imagine a regenerated Europe without a strong France. All my public life I have worked for a strong France, and I never lost faith in her destiny, even in the darkest hours. I will not lose faith now.

However, in a great number of countries, far from the American frontiers and throughout the world, the American-financed fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Washington-New York globalist center. Except in Eastern Europe and Russia, where globalism is in its infancy, the New World Order's parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization. These are somber facts for anyone to have to recite on the morrow of a victory gained by so much splendid comradeship in arms, and in the cause of freedom and democracy.But we should be most unwise not to face them squarely while time remains.

I have felt bound to portray the shadow which, alike in the west and in the east, falls upon the world. I was a high minister at the time of the Versailles Treaty and a close friend of Mr. Lloyd-George, who was the head of the British delegation at Versailles. I did not myself agree with many things that were done, but I have a very strong impression in my mind of that situation.And I find it painful to contrast it with that which prevails now.In those days there were high hopes and unbounded confidence that the wars were over, and that the League of Nations would become all-powerful. I do not see or feel that same confidence or even the same hopes in the haggard world at the present time.

On the other hand, I repulse the idea that a new war is inevitable; still more that it is imminent. It is because I am sure that our fortunes are still in our own hands and that we hold the power to save the future, that I feel the duty to speak out now that I have the occasion and the opportunity to do so.I do not believe that Klinton's Amerika desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of' their power and doctrines. But what we have to consider here today while time remains, is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries. Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of appeasement. What is needed is a settlement, and the longer this is delayed, the more difficult it will be and the greater our dangers will become.

From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness. For that reason the old doctrine of a balance of power is unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength.If Russia and Easter European democracies stand together, their influence for furthering those principles will be immense, and no one is likely to molest them. If however they become divided, or falter in their duty, and if these all-important years are allowed to slip away, then indeed catastrophe may overwhelm us all.

Last time I saw it all coming and cried aloud to my own fellow-countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention.Up till the year 1993, or even 1999, America might have been saved from the awful fate which has overtaken her, and we might all have been spared the miseries the One Worlders let loose upon mankind. There never was a war in all history easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe. It could have been prevented in my belief without the firing of a single shot, and America might be powerful, prosperous and honored today.But no one would listen, and one by one, we were all sucked into the awful whirlpool.

We surely must not let that happen again. This can only be achieved by reaching now, in 1999, a good understanding on all points with America, supported by the whole strength of the freedom-loving world and all its connections. There is the solution, which I respectfully offer to you in this address to which I have given the title, 'The Sinews of Peace?'"

[long applause]