Europe says no to the “Star Wars” project

Presented as a defense system against possible Iranian missile attacks, the United States’ NMD project – National Missile Defense – known as the “Missile Shield”, in reality is an offensive weapon and aims towards the militarization and control of space. As Noam Chomsky says, “the installation by the United States of a Missile Defense System in Eastern Europe is practically a declaration of war, an instrument for global domination.”

The project is surrounded by mysteries with secret agreements between the United States and different European countries, sidelining public opinion and even European parliaments. Europe has not managed to give a unified, coherent and non-violent response to the aggressive policies of the United States and this inertia has been contributing towards pushing Russia, which feels directly threatened by this North American project, towards the path of re-armament re-creating a “cold war” atmosphere.

In a moment of global economic crisis where the cost of food is growing incredibly and education and health-care are being dangerously privatized, it is madness to spend millions of Euros on war and the production of new weapon systems. In such a difficult moment of global history, Europe must not support any policy that pushes the planet towards catastrophe: the lives of millions of people are at stake. We cannot allow our politicians to support the absurd intentions of the United States to transform Europe into the theatre of a possible nuclear war.

Precisely in these days, Europe is participating in a silent consensus of the military occupation that the United States is planning to do in the Czech Republic. We express our solidarity with the humanists Jan Tamas and Jan Bednar who have started a hunger strike in the Czech Republic to ask that the will of 65% of the population is respected and that the subject of installing a US military base on Czech territory be decided democratically through a referendum.

We therefore ask every Government and the European Parliament to take a clear and decisive position, denying support for the Missile Shield project because it puts the peace and co-existence of our peoples in danger.

We strongly object to establishment of new military bases of foreign powers on European territory or to the expansion of those already existing. We demand the elimination of all nuclear arsenals.

Giorgio Schultze