Poland: Nato summit and the Chilcot Report: will the big lie of the Iraq War also be discussed before NATO starts another confrontation?

NATO and the Chilcot Report

The British Newspaper "The Guardian" reported NATO leaders flew into Warsaw for a two-day summit with the hope of steadying nerves following the UK’s vote to leave the EU and restoring western cohesion in the face of the challenge from Russia and terrorism.

The summit will authorise the stationing of four multinational combat battalions in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and is expected to announce a new stage of readiness of a missile defence shield in eastern Europe. Alliance officials are presenting the creation of the 1,000-strong battalions, led by the US, the UK, Canada and Germany, as a carefully calibrated response to Moscow’s more assertive military stance and intervention in Ukraine.

They insist that the defense system is intended to counter a missile threat from Iran and Syria, not to blunt Russia’s deterrent. But analysts warn that there is a risk of Russia overreacting to Nato’s moves, fuelling escalation on the latter’s tense eastern border.

The summit, which began today Friday, July 8, is being held in Poland’s national stadium on the east bank of the Vistula river. In this location, during the summer of 1944, Stalin halted the advance of the Soviet army long enough for the Nazis to obliterate a mass uprising by the Polish resistance in Warsaw.

The Polish government has declared a high state of alert, with 18 presidents and 21 heads of government due to converge on the capital. For the duration of the summit, which will involve foreign ministers on Friday and heads of state and government on Saturday, boats will be banned along a section of the river near the stadium and light aircraft will be prohibited from flying through the country’s airspace within a 62 mile (100km) radius.

On the eve of the summit, Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, and the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, insisted that Brexit would not affect the strength of the alliance.

“The EU and Nato are quite separate organizations,” Duda told journalists. “The UK is one of the strongest members of Nato, and I have no doubt that its participation and cooperation in the alliance will continue at least at the same level.”

Even though no mention was made at all by NATO, the US or any of the NATO members prior to this meeting about the Chilcot Report, one can only hope the attending participants in this NATO meeting will also address this "historical" big lie used by the US to drag Britain and other European countries into the Iraq war, and obviously also NATO's role in this lie.  

It certainly would be productive to do so, specially before, and if, some of the latest proposed NATO plans to reinforce NATO troops on Russia's Baltic borders are put into effect. Not doing so could once again drag the EU and other NATO member countries into another disastrous conflict, like the one in Iraq, with all its horrendous, and ongoing consequences (massive refugee problems and security issues) experienced by the EU today. Issues which also indirectly resulted in BREXIT.

EU-Digest