Chicago – May 2012

Sponsored by: Network for a NATO-Free World: Global 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 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 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:( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Joseph Gerson ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )