DAYTON, Ohio—As the NATO Parliamentary Assembly sat for its spring session here in the town where it promulgated its 1995 Dayton Accords, hundreds of protestors demonstrated against the ongoing expansion of its war plans..
A broad coalition of working people, environmentalists and peace activists gathered early Saturday morning on the grassy lawn of the Dayton Public Library, closed to the public for the day to accommodate the NATO meeting. Outside hundreds gathered to hear speeches from the leaders of the groups behind the protests, including Veterans for Peace, the Ohio Peace Council, the Ohio Nuclear Free Network, and the Communist Party USA.
Just next door, separated by 12-foot high portable security fencing and dozens of heavily armed police, representatives and staff of the 32-nation NATO alliance were contained within a multi-block security perimeter in the Oregon riverfront district of downtown Dayton. People looking out the windows of their nearby hotels looked out over the crowds.
As the peace forces gathered there NATO countries on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, with the backing of the U.S., were shipping troops, planes and missiles to posts in Eastern European countries that the U.S. promised at the end of the Cold War would never become part of NATO. The Soviet Union dismantled, as agreed, the Warsaw Pact which had been formed after World War II, to counter the war aims of NATO. The U.S., at the end of the Cold War, however, led a NATO push, contrary to what it had promised, eastward and into even states that were once part of the Soviet Union.
U.S. troops, under the cover of NATO, now maneuver regularly in places like Lithuania and Latvia, once part of the Soviet Union. Highways in Poland that run west to east are being widened and reinforced to accommodate NATO tanks that could use them in a future escalation of tensions with Russia.
NATO’s aiming for Russia is particularly dangerous because it, along with the U.S., possesses huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. The current war in Ukraine is, in no small part, the result of NATO’s expansion up to the borders of Russia and its earlier plans to set up shop in Ukraine too.
At the protest in Dayton, a band named “Gadflies” made plenty of noise, leading the crowd in singing “We Shall Not be Moved” and “Solidarity Forever.” Speaker after speaker outlined NATOs historical role in facilitating war, from the 1995 Dayton accords that finally ended the devastating NATO-led Bosnian war, to the current genocide in Gaza, sustained by NATO weapons and supplies.
The coalition of attendees included representation from the growing American peace movement. Veterans for Peace, an organization of U.S. military veterans dedicated to serving the cause of world peace through non-violence, served as the center point for representatives of the national peace movement gathered here in Dayton. Several members of VFP wore green arm bands – representing their commitment to a 40-day fast for peace in Gaza.
The crowd swelled as speeches and music transitioned into a march across the Miami River, bypassing the closed NATO-occupied RiverScape MetroPark, and continuing around the entirety of the security perimeter. A police helicopter and scattered surveillance drones ensured air superiority over the peaceful demonstration.
The drones were a particularly ominous sign of what may be in the future for central Ohio. Although Dayton was chosen as the site of the meeting ostensibly in self-congratulation for the 30-year anniversary of NATO’s better-late-than-never Dayton accords, a large part of the appeal of holding the NATO meeting in Dayton was the opportunity to discuss weapons manufacturer, Andruil Industries.
Andruil Industries is constructing a $1.5 billion automated weapons manufacturing facility just a few miles south of Columbus, Ohio. According to Adruil, “Arsenal-1 will redefine the scale and speed that autonomous systems and weapons can be produced for the United States and its allies and partners.” The construction will be subsidized by more than $500 million in tax credits from the state of Ohio.
Andruil’s founder, Palmer Luckey, was recently featured on 60 Minutes promoting his vision: “America needs to stop being the world police and should shift to being an arms dealer.”.Andruil’s far-right venture capital base is led by notable techno-fascist Peter Thiel through his Founders Fund investment group, which is also heavily invested in SpaceX, Facebook, and of course Thiel’s own PayPal.
Dayton also is home to the Wright-Patterson Air Force base, one of the largest Air Force bases in the continental United States and home of the Air Force Material Command, which “develops, delivers, supports and sustains war-winning capabilities.” As a logistical hub, Wright-Patterson is the perfect backdrop for the integration of NATO leaders and military-industrial manufacturers.
NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly in Dayton, with its lavish cocktail parties and lush entertainment for foreign visitors, enjoyed generous sponsorship from defense manufacturers such as GE Aerospace and defense industry lobbyists Booz Allen Hamilton. The costs of the extensive security measures demanded by the visiting dignitaries were imposed squarely on Dayton taxpayers and totaled at least $3 million for the four-day meeting.
Recent surveys show that approximately 5,000 people spend time in Dayton’s homeless shelters in an average year.
As the peace demonstration crossed the bridge over the Miami River, drones flew overhead, dozens of security personnel in tactical gear flanked the enormous crowd between the road and the railing, and a police boat and its armed occupants watched from the river below.
The rhyming of history could not have been more clear. George Washington’s army traveled in boats up this same river on a murderous rampage against the Miami people who once lived in this valley, destroying villages and burning 20,000 bushels of corn just before the winter of 1790.
Now, with bombs continuing to rain down on Gaza and the threat of starvation, the deepest of all human fears, looming over its valiant people, the crowd unfurled its great banner over the Miami River for every news camera in the world to capture: “Yes to Peace. No to NATO.” May we see peace in our time.
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