Within days of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the NATO countries invoked Chapter 5 of the alliance's Charter, declaring that an attack against one member is an attack against all. The declaration expands NATO's sphere of operations from its original North Atlantic region to the entire planet, and eliminates any meaningful role for the United Nations in this crisis.

The following list of reasons to oppose NATO is based on a longer article by Ottawa peace activist Richard Saunders, avaiable online at www.ncf.coat/ca.

1 NATO is a creature of the Cold War and should be abolished, not expanded. NATO's official military doctrine reserves for itself the right to use nuclear weapons despite the fact that in 1996 the World Court made such use, or threat, illegal. The use of nuclear weapons contravenes international humanitarian law because civilian deaths would be massive and indiscriminate. NATO's nuclear weapons policy also contravenes the Non-Proliferation Treaty (to which all NATO members are signatories) that requires all states to press quickly to abolish nuclear weapons. Three NATO states, the US, UK, and France, now have more than 9,000 nuclear warheads in active service, about 60% of the world's nuclear arsenal. NATO itself maintains between 60 and 200 nuclear weapons at airbases in Western Europe. NATO's nuclear weapons are a means of coercion and intimidation, especially against states that do not possess these weapons.

2 NATO's powerful core members (the US, the UK, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and Spain) have a long history of controlling vast empires. Former colonies of these NATO countries - today's Third World - stil suffer from tragic economic inequalities resulting from hundreds of years of imperialism imposed by nation that are now members of NATO. Transnational corporations controlled by economic interests in NATO contries continue to dominate these former colonies under a neoliberal economic system now labelled "corporate globalization."

3 According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, about 80% of the world's total military equipment was produced by NATO members in 1996. The following NATO members are among the world's top ten military producers: the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Canada. The US, UK, and France alone contributed about 70% of world's total arms production for that year.

4 NATO waged a war of agression against Yugoslavia that was illegal under its own Charter and various international laws. NATO forces used 1,200 warplanes and helicopters to fly 35,000 combat missions against Yugoslavia, dropping 20,000 bombs and missiles containing 80,000 tons of explosives. Contrary to international law, NATO targeted civilian infrastructure, including over 1,000 targets of no military significance, such as: schools, hospitals, farms, bridges, roads, railways, waterlines, media stations, historic and cultural monuments, museums, factories, oil refineries and petrochemical plants. Thousands of civilians were killed, at least 6,000 were injured and countless others, especially children, suffered severe psychological trauma.

5 In its 1999 war against Yugoslavia, NATO used weapons prohibited by the Hague and Geneva Conventions and the Nuremburg Charter, such as depleted uranium missiles and highly toxic weapons with long-term, life-threatening health and environmental consequences, and anti-personnel cluster bombs desugned to kill and maim. NATO continues to stockpile these prohibited weapons for use against civilian populations in future wars.

6 The exploitive behaviour rampant in military culture is exemplified by the actions of NATO troops based in the Balkans. For example, NATO troops fuel the demand for prostitution in both Bosnia and Kosovo. The women who service the NATO troops live in deplorable conditions and are frequently held against their will by local captors. When evidence of UN or NATO involvement in this trade has surfaces, implicated officers have been discharged and sent home, but no criminal proceedings have ever been initiated against them.

7 With NATO's annexation of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland now complete, Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakiaand Slovenia have declared an interest in joining the NATO juggernaut. NATO has set its sights on penetrating further into former Soviet spheres of influence by trying to encompass Azerbaijan, Belarus, Krygyzstan and the Ukraine. NATO's intention to press beyond the former borders of the Soviet Union is dangerously confrontational and risks provoking war with Russia.

8 NATO's military access and control over Eastern Europe helps Western European corporations to secure strategic energy resources such as oil from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. The US and Western European corporations will greatly benefit from NATO's control of the oil corridor through the Caucasus mountains. NATO wants it troops to patrol with pipeline and to dominate the Armenian/Russian route to the Caspian Sea. The Caucasus also link the Adriatic-Ceyhan-Baku pipeline with oil-rich countries even farther east, in the former Soviet Central Asia republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Billions of dollars in oil may someday flow through these corridors to Western Europe for the benefit of Western-based oil companies.

9 NATO's growth also threatens the security of China and other Asian states that may respond in kind by increasing their military spending, thus diverting resources from the essential needs of their citizens. NATO's expansion may eventually provoke an anti-NATO alliance in Asia, further destabilizing peace and leading to possible future wars.

10 As part of the "NATO Defence Capabilities Initiative," NATO member states have committed themselves to increase their military abilities for "power projection, mobility and increased interoperability." European NATO countries have already increased their expenditures for military equipment by 11% in real terms since 1995. Military budgets in the US and Canada have also increased over the past two years. The military budgets of NATO countries amounted to about 60% of the world's total military spending (US $798 billion) for the year 2000.

11 The testing and training conducted by NATO has numerous negative impacts on people and the environment. NATO's war preparations include military exercises, the training of pilots and the testing of weapons and warplanes. For instance, low level flight training areas and bombing ranges in Nitassinan threaten the traditional lifestyle of many in the Innu Nation. Their unceded territory in Quebec and Labrador is being turned into a military wasteland by NATO test flights.

12 In the late 1940s-early 1950s, at the bidding of the CIA, NATO helped to set up secret paramilitary, anti-communist cells in at least 16 European states. This network of guerrilla armies was created to fight behind the lines in case of a Soviet invasion. The clandestine armies were condemned by the European Union in a resolution (Dec. 22, 1990) that blames the CIA and NATO for their role in overseeing this covert operations. These organizations, which the EU feared may still have been operating in 1990, were accused of illegal interference in politcal affairs, conducting terrorist attacks, jeopardizing democratic structures and other serious crimes.