Chicago NATO Protests Captured on YouTube [VIDEOS]
from Mashable! by Alex Fitzpatrick
Thousands of protestors took to the streets of Chicago in anti-NATO protests held while the military alliance?s leadership met there to discuss the future of war-torn Afghanistan over the weekend. Activists and police experienced various run-ins and the entire weekend was captured on video and uploaded to YouTube.
Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul (C) attends a meeting at the NATO Summit in Chicago, May 20, 2012.
Live indie web video coverage of NATO protest in Chicago: many streams, one post
from Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin
NATO protests in Chicago: Police van drives into protesters, web video reporters detained, held at gunpoint (photos+video)
The Chicago Summit: a relevant NATO in a post-western world ?, Trine Flockhart
from open Democracy News Analysis – by Trine Flockhart
NATO attempts to brush over the original intentions behind the Chicago Summit may prove successful, given an extremely able diplomatic bureaucracy and an environment with a short memory span. But despite ‘smart defense’, three crucial issues left off the agenda could spell the end of NATO relevance.
Defining NATO partnerships: why the ‘Stability’ critique is flawed, Josiah Surface
from open Democracy News Analysis – by Josiah Surface
Stability is a desirable outcome for all parties in the Mediterranean Dialogue. This does not mean returning to the failed policies of the past; our Atlantic Memo is rather a roadmap for maintaining a commitment to the burgeoning democratic institutions of the region.
NATO ponders austerity and US ‘pivot’
by Centre for European Reform
by Tomas Valasek
When NATO heads of state meet in Chicago this Sunday and Monday, two key worries will be on their minds. In a departure from the past six decades, the US has come to style itself as a Pacific, rather than Atlantic, power. And the Europeans are busy plundering their defence budgets in order to cope with the economic crisis. Any one of those two events alone would have a dramatic effect on how the alliance works. Taken together, they risk pushing NATO into irrelevance.
The Necessity of NATO
from Project Syndicate by Anders Fogh Rasmussen
After the Cold War, many assumed that NATO would fade away. But NATO has always been based on shared ideals, not common threats, and, at the Alliance’s upcoming summit in Chicago, its members and partners will confirm that bond, even as they address today’s most pressing security issues.