NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will address a joint meeting of Congress today.

[See video of RootsAction.org news conference “NATO and U.S. Foreign Policy: Dangers Ahead” at the National Press Club on Tuesday, which included former State Department officials Matthew Hoh and Ann Wright and Martin Fleck of Physicians for Social Responsibility.]

This week marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of NATO. Foreign ministers from NATO countries will participate in commemorations in Washington, D.C. There will also be teach-ins and protests, see: NoToNato.org.

While Stoltenberg has argued that NATO provides stability, security and peace, many scrutinizing NATO have come to the opposite conclusion.

DAVID GIBBS, dgibbs at arizona.edu
Gibbs is professor of history at the University of Arizona, and author of the 2009 book First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, published by Vanderbilt University Press.He said today: “The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s record on global security has been disastrous, especially with regard to its efforts at interventionism and regime change. Its 1999 bombing of Serbia and Kosovo greatly augmented the scale of atrocities and ethnic cleansing. The 2011 NATO intervention in Libya was even more disastrous, triggering a generalized destabilization of the whole North African region. And more recently, NATO expansion into Eastern Europe has contributed to rising tensions between the West and Russia. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO’s principal legacy has been to generate global insecurity and destabilization — all at great expense to taxpayers.”

See from FAIR: “Media Erase NATO Role in Bringing Slave Markets to Libya.”

The Norway-based analyst John Y. Jones states that NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg is seen as a Norwegian Blair (with respect to privatization and tax reduction). Jones states that Stoltenberg’s enthusiasm for Norway’s participation in the 2011 bombing of Libya was seen as his ticket to becoming Secretary General of NATO. A critical book about him, The Man Without Spine, was written by Magnus Marsdal.

See from the Swedish analyst Jan Oberg of the Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research: “NATO’s Crisis and the Transatlantic Conflict.”