Countries aspiring for NATO membership are also expected to meet certain political, economic and military goals in order to ensure that they will become contributors to Alliance security as well as beneficiaries of it.
NATO's Membership Action Plan (MAP) is designed to assist aspirant partner countries in their preparations by providing a framework which enables NATO to channel assistance and practical support to them on all aspects of NATO membership.
Translation: Any country willing to put its pride on hold and bend its will to the U.S. agenda is eligible. We will protect you if you do not publicly oppose our wild and undisciplined military adventures around the world.
Q: What is NATO's position on Iraq?
A: The campaign against Iraq in 2003 was conducted by a coalition of forces from different countries, some of which were NATO member countries and some were not. NATO as an organisation had no role in the campaign but undertook a number of measures in accordance with Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, to ensure the security of one of its members, Turkey, in the event of a threat to it resulting from the war in Iraq. On 21 May 2003, the Alliance also agreed to support Poland, a member of NATO, in its leadership of a sector in the stabilization force in Iraq.
In August 2004, in response to a request by the Iraqi Interim Government, NATO established a Training Implementation Mission in Iraq. NATO is involved in training, equipping, and technical assistance — not combat. The aim of the Mission is to help Iraq build the capability of its Government to address the security needs of the Iraqi people.
Translation: Look, we smelled bullshit from the start. The United States was on a wild goose chase to secure its oil interests. But we did as ordered, and did not publicly oppose them.
Q: What is NATO's role in the fight against terrorism?
A: On 12 September 2001, less than 24 hours after the terrorist attacks against the United States, NATO declared the attacks to be an attack against all the 19 NATO member countries within the terms of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
This landmark decision was followed by practical measures aimed at assisting the United States in different fields, in relation to its campaign against terrorism.
Translation: We voted on Article 5 only after making sure we would not be required to do anything. Once we were given assurances it was a symbolic gesture, we couldn't rock the vote fast enough.
Q: Is NATO involved in Afghanistan?
A: Yes. Through its leadership of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), NATO is helping establish the conditions in which Afghanistan can enjoy a representative government and self-sustaining peace and security.
The Alliance took over command and coordination of ISAF in August 2003. Initially restricted to providing security in and around Kabul, NATO-led ISAF has gradually extended its reach and is now responsible for security across the whole country. This is the first mission outside the Euro-Atlantic area in NATO's history.
Translation: As usual, we sent a few Italians and Greeks over there to make it look good. If the United States would like to touch it up with another non-NATO country in the future we will be happy to green light their military mission.
Q: What is Russia's status — is it a partner country?
A: Yes. NATO and Russia made a reciprocal commitment to work together to build a stable, secure and undivided continent on the basis of partnership and common interest in 1997.
This commitment was strengthened in May 2002, with the establishment of the NATO-Russia Council, which brings together the 26 NATO Allies and Russia to identify and pursue opportunities for joint action at 27 as equal partners.
Translation: Of course, they are just playing along to see what our weaknesses are. They are about ten minutes from teaming up with Japan and going on the offensive.
Q: What are the official languages of NATO?
A: The two official languages of NATO are English and French.
Translation: We had to throw the Frenchies a bone here. They are soooo high-maintenance.
Q: How much does NATO cost and who pays for it?
A: NATO is an intergovernmental organization to which member nations allocate the resources needed to enable it to function on a day-to-day basis. There are three budgets: one civil and two military. Each NATO member country pays an amount into the budgets based on an agreed cost-sharing formula. Taken together, these budgets represent less than half of one percent of the total defence budget expenditures of NATO countries.
Translation: Don't believe the hype. The United States picks up the tab. More recently, we switched from prime rib to corned beef hash at NATO functions.
Q: How do I apply for a job at NATO? Who can apply?
A: Nationals of NATO member countries may apply for all posts on NATO's international staff. Appointments to most posts are made on the basis of interview panels and written tests.
Translation: If you are related to a president or royalty you can probably score a cushy post that will look good on your resume while getting to backpack through Europe for a couple years.
1949–1954 MCCARTHYISM
Anyone with a bottle of vodka and a same-sex friend came under suspicion
What's in a Name?
There is no easy way to have your name referred to a specific act unless you truly earn it. It takes a commitment to perform an usual act that disturbs the public consciousness for your name to become a popular euphemism. For instance, if you “pull an O.J.,” you killed your ex-wife and her Good Samaritan friend in a near decapitation-style murder following an unprovoked fit of rage. If you pull a Clinton, you got kinky with a cigar with an overweight intern. If you party like a Kennedy, you began drinking at 8 a.m., later driving your car off a cliff, drowning your lover, and then using your money and powerful friends to cover the whole thing up.
McCarthyism is the worst of all acts. Synonymous with promoting Communism, and generally not supporting the old U.S. of A., it has always been better to be a drunk, a murderer, or a lover of big women, than it is to be a proponent of Communist ideology here in America.
Red Scare Nation
Before the Red Scare of the 1940s and '50s, the most significant Red Scare for men was the monthly problem of their wife's PMS. However, during the 1940s and '50s, the Red Scare referred to Americans' fear that Communist spies were infiltrating every American organization, including the Future Polygamists of San Antonio, a high school organization.
Popular thinking was that the long-term objective of proponents for a state-run government was to hold positions of power in important organizations and then overthrow the U.S. government. Those held at the highest levels of suspicion were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators, and union activists. CURRENTLY, HOLLYWOOD STARS SEAN PENN, SUSAN SARANDON, AND SHARON STONE ARE UNDER SUSPICION FOR BEHAVIOR THAT SEEMS SYMPATHETIC TO THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT.
Red Dawn Wolverine!
In the early 1950s, a State Department official and some scientists were caught and admitted to spying and stealing secrets for the ruble-spending Soviets. Panic about the Soviets' John Holmes-ish penetration into the United States reached Jonas Brothers — level hysteria.
Looking for a little attention, Joseph McCarthy put himself in the middle of the Red Scare during a speech in February 1950. During this speech, he stated he had a list of 205 State Department employees who were Communists, along with one in six who were also either homosexual, bisexual, or bi-curious, yet still employed in the State Department shaping U.S. policy.
In 1947, the only thing worse than a gay was an aspiring gay Communist, so President Truman executed Executive Order 9835, allowing for a “loyalty review” of federal employees. If found lacking in heterosexuality or loyalty, they were fired and branded as someone who was a flag-burning America hater. It got so bad that anyone with a bottle of vodka and a same-sex friend in his house came under suspicion.
The Truman Show
Seeking and destroying possible Communist embrac
ers did not have the support of everyone in the government. In 1950, President Truman wrote, “In a free country, we punish men for the crimes they commit, but never for the opinions they have.” Later, after leaving office, he criticized the Eisenhower administration, stating, “It is now evident that the present Administration has fully embraced, for political advantage, McCarthyism. I am not referring to the Senator from Wisconsin. He is only important in that his name has taken on the dictionary meaning of the word.” THOSE IN WISCONSIN FELT IF MC CARTHY TRULY REPRESENTED THEM, MCCARTHYISM WOULD INVOLVE WEARING A CHEESE TRIANGLE ON YOUR HEAD WHILE COMPLETELY HAMMERED.
1950–1953 THE KOREAN WAR
A fondness for oppression
Red Angst
Five years after World War II ended and the spectacular air raids and heroic ground combat ceased, the Communist leaders of the Soviet Union were finding the day-to-day operations of a nation without free will a little tedious. They growled, and the population showed the appropriate and required amount of fear. The Communist regime gave an order, and it was followed immediately. The occasional showing of free will was squashed quickly and effectively. It was argued by many inside the police state that as enjoyable as it is to torture and maim those who share your homeland, it is always more fun to inflict fear and pain on those from other countries, especially individuals and families with an interest in open elections and freedom of choice.
Soviet president and longtime oppressor of freedom Joseph Stalin agreed with the first tenet of armed conflict, which states that even though there are generally accepted issues of inconvenience when fighting a war on the road, the difficulties and expense of postwar cleanup and the reduction of the host country's civil population through friendly fire and enemy aggression far outweigh the logistical issues of traveling. In order to prove his theory, Stalin sent freedom killers from the Central Red Army to help keep peace in Korea by patrolling the area north of the thirty-eighth parallel until a unified and free, count-every-ballot election could be held in the small Asian country.
Unfortunately for those making their home in the northern part of Korea, the Soviet government had no real intention of allowing them to hold up their Iraqi like purple ink — stained thumb as proof of their participation in the democratic process. Instead, the Central Red Army was ordered to ensure that voting did not take place north of the thirty-eighth parallel. With scores of Korean citizens south of the thirty-eighth parallel earning a purple thumb on May 10, 1948, the election was deemed legitimate, and Syngman Rhee became president of the Republic of Korea, which consisted of only the land and citizens south of the thirty-eighth parallel.
Communist Masters
Left out of the democratic process by their unwelcome foreign oppressors, the area north of the thirty-eighth parallel was renamed the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as Kim Il-sung, a Korean national who earned his master's degree in communism from the University of Phoenix's Moscow campus, was conveniently elected president without the troublesome inconvenience of a public election. President Kim had a strong mandate from the electorate, and he made plans to spread his fondness for oppression by invading those enjoying their freedom south of the thirty-eighth parallel.
On June 25, 1950, Kim ordered the North Korean People's Army to invade the Republic of Korea, killing everything in sight, while at the same time leaving behind pamphlets of the benefits of communism for the families of the dead to enjoy.
WW 2.5 Limited Edition
While mindful of the possibility of World War III breaking out over the differences in political ideology, U.S. President Harry S. Truman sent General Douglas MacArthur to defend the sovereignty of the Republic of Korea by heading up the United Nations coalition of the willing. With a U.N. mandate to unify Korea, MacArthur raised hell on both sides of the thirty-eighth parallel, forcing the North Korean Army to retreat far into the northern area of their country.
Chinese Insurgents
Progress was steady, and with victory on the horizon, MacArthur ordered a large “Mission Accomplished” banner to be displayed outside the Korean National Zoo. As those fighting against the spread of communism began to make plans to enjoy the spoils of their victory with thankful Korean woman, 180,000 communist sympathizers from China entered the war in support of Kim.
Using the strength in numbers approach, the 180,000 oppression spreaders overwhelmed U.N. forces, forcing many of them back into the southern portion of Korea. With China now fully involved in the war, MacArthur urged Truman to allow him to attack China as retaliation for their intervention. Fearing all-out nuclear war, Truman ordered MacArthur to focus on fighting the war on Korean turf and ignore his desire to tangle with China on their soil.
With the North Koreans, the Chinese, and the Soviets all heavily involved in the fight for this small, moderately priced guitar-producing nation, the coalition of the willing slowly was becoming the coalition of the less than willing. As their desire to take on China diminished, enthusiasm for a cease-fire was growing.
With millions dead and the postwar cleanup significant, the war ended on July 27, 1953. Leaning on their newly established relationship with the active human breeders in China, the country of North Korea began to use state-approved Chinese breeding techniques to replenish their postwar population.
1955 ROSA PARKS
Huge fan of public transportation
Move to the Black of the Bus
When Rosa Parks her ass on a bus, people listen. As a part-time car enthusiast and a full-time realist, Parks knew the wages paid to her as a black woman would never afford her the opportunity to drive the car of her dreams, a converted Crown Victoria cop car pimped out with twenty-two-inch rims and aftermarket hydraulics. Instead, leaning on her penchant for reality, Parks became a huge fan of public transportation. There was no three-wheel motion, no rims, and no stereo, but at least it got you from one miserable destination to another in a not-so-timely manner.
Parks rode her transportation vehicle of affordable choice without incident until December 1, 1955, when she got a hair up her ass concerning the Jim Crow laws of separate and unequal. These laws were designed to allow black and white people to live in perfect harmony like ebony and ivory or Michael Jackson's DNA, providing blacks were submissive to the desires of God's Caucasian people. The public transportation system was a great opportunity for African Americans to demonstrate their required submissiveness by willingly and happily sitting at the back of the bus. It was expected that black people would eagerly give up their seat so white men and woman could rest their tired, pale legs if the bus became crowded. There was an understanding and sympathy about the burden of being white in a white society by the minority bus-riding population.
As the bus made its rounds on that fateful December day, more and more of America's majority boarded Rosa's bus of choice. As the driver continued to move the “colored section” sign farther back in the bus to accommodate the additional white passengers, Rosa stayed put. When the driver threatened to call the police, Rosa told him to go for it. As the police officer arrested Rosa, she thanked the bus driver for his racially biased actions.
More Empty Seats than New Yankee Stadium
Capitalizing on Rosa's arrest, Montgomery, Alabama, pastor and aspiring civil rights leader Martin Luther King headed up a boycott of the local public transportation system. On December 5, 1955, nearly 90 percent of all the black people who had complacently been sitting at the back of the bus followed King's request and surprisingly found another way to travel to their destination. WITH THE OVERWHELMING SUPPORT HE RECEIVED ON DAY ONE OF THE BOYCOTT, KING PUSHED FOR A SECOND DAY, THEN A WEEK, THEN A MONTH, AND THEN A YEAR. KING'S PEACEFUL PROTESTS ATTRACTED NATIONAL COVERAGE, CULMINATING WITH A FAIR AND BALANCED INTERVIEW ON THE O'REILLY FACTOR.
As lawsuits were filed, the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court ruled on December 20, 1956, that the segregation was illegal, immediately opening up great seats right up front next to the driver for African America
ns all across the country. Unable to change the reality that she would never be able to afford her pimped out Crown Victoria that she so desperately desired because as a black woman she would always be paid less than her white counterparts, the Supreme Court also ordered that, for her trouble, Rosa Parks receive a lifetime public transportation pass allowing her to ride any bus anytime anywhere in America for free … providing seats are available.
1962 CUBA NMISSILE CRISIS
Check, bet, or fold
Nuclear Chicken
In between trolling for willing and eager one-night companions within the White House secretary pool, President John F. Kennedy worked in a little game of nuclear chicken with the sometimes-sober leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev.
Prior to JFK placing his nonmasturbatory hand on the Bible and taking the oath of office, previous president Dwight D. Eisenhower was credited with kicking off the testosterone-filled showdown in 1959, when he deployed U.S. made Jupiter missiles uncomfortably close to the Soviet Union border. Using the accommodating countries of Turkey and Italy to act as storage units for his toys, Eisenhower announced the purpose of the missiles was to promote peace in the region. UPON TAKING OFFICE, JFK ARGUED PASSIONATELY THAT THE PATH TO PEACE WAS THROUGH INTERCONTINENTAL EXTRAMARITAL AFFAIRS.
He told the White House press corps that he had his eye on an insanely hot blonde from Moscow named Natasha Breastinov that he noticed while surfing the erotic services section of a popular underground Soviet website.
The Slackers Guide to U.S. History Page 13