Interview with retired US Colonel Ann Wright: “I believe the US government’s policies are making the world a more dangerous place.”

The interview was conducted by Tanja Stopper, technical support by Kristine Karch.

Dear Ann, thank you for taking the time for this interview.

Ann, you served in the US Army/Army Reserves for 29 years and retired as a colonel. You also spent 16 years in the U.S. diplomatic corps, serving in U.S. embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. In March 2003 you resigned from the US government in protest against the US war against Iraq. Since then you`ve been committed to peace.

This year is NATO’s 75th birthday and it`s being celebrated in Washington with high-ranking government and military officials. How do you feel about NATO celebrating its 75th anniversary?

Well, thank you so much, it`s a pleasure to be with you. As you mentioned in your introduction, I served both in the US military 29 years, retired as a colonel, I also – one of my assignments – was with the NATO subcommand called “Allied Forces Central Europe”, which is in the Netherlands. So I´ve had exposure to NATO firsthand. And as a US-diplomat I served in countries where there were NATO actions. And after resignation 21 years ago, I am very, very negative about NATO and its 75th anniversary, because NATO, rather than being a force for peace, seems now to be a force for war. And of course, NATO will say: “Well, sometimes you have to have a war in order to get the peace. You have to warhead and kill lots of people in order to stop the killing.” And that rationale I find very troublesome and repugnant. And therefore, I think to NATO`s 75th anniversary, we have to go back and look at what NATO has done – during those 75 years – and see, and analyze where really peace was made from this. A peace that should have made really from diplomacy and not from military action, which is the way, NATO goes about doing things.

Yes, thank you. Now, this counter-event was planned by a large alliance, including many veterans, military personnel and historians with relevant military and geostrategic experience. What is your explanation for the fact that these people (including you) are currently so vehemently committed to diplomacy, ceasefires and negotiations, while people with less experience are pushing forward armament and thus escalation and threat scenarios worldwide?

Well, it`s a good question. And really, the answer is in the question. Because it`s the veterans, the people that have actually been in wars, that say: “We don`t wanna do it anymore and no one else should. Because the consequences that we have seen from our firsthand are so negative, so horrable, that there`s got to be a better way to resolve the international crisis, that shooting people is not the way to resolve crisis. And ultimately everytime that the military has been used, ultimately it`s negotiations and words, diplomacy, that have ultimately resolved the issue. So: Why don`t we just go straight from the crisis to resolving the issue with nonlethal means and leave the military out of it? So, that`s why we had so many military people in that counter-summit that were from the military.

The peace summit with the core events from May 5th to 7th July began well beforehand with a peace march from Maine to Washington and there are other various events after that. Can you give us something and tell us about your impressions? Were there any personal highlights?

Yes! We were so pleased that Veterans for Peace decided, that the organization would sponsore a walk that went all the way from the Northern tip of the United States, all the way down the Eastern coast, to Washington, D.C. It was a trip, that took 60 days and during those 60 days the marchers stopped every night in a different city and local organizers hosted events in the city about a variety of things. Certainly, NATO was one of the subjects, but it was the increased militarization of our U.S. society and then bring in the broughter context of the whole world. So, the group stopped at cities that have a big military involvement and sometimes it`s actually active dudy military or it may be the mergance of war, the corporations that build the weapons that are used to kill people around the world. So, all the way down from Maine through Connecticut, Massachusetts, from Mainte onto New York, down through New Chersea, Maryland, then finally in Delaware. That`s the home of President Biden, they stopped in Delaware and then on into Washington, D.C. So it was a very robust schedule, there were approximately 500 people that took part in the various stops along the way. They didn`t march like 12 hours a day. It was a symbolic march and usually 3 to 5 and sometimes up to 8 miles per day. But, you know, as the weather got colder – or they started in cold weather – and then got hotter and hotter, because many of the marchers were older, it was the symbolism about marching and then having the events in the local communities. That was most important.

Wow, very nice, beautiful! Unfortunately, this hasn`t been reported in our media so far, although the media is full of reports about the NATO summit. The thousands of people of peace are still being categorically ignored. In Germany, media reporting changed significantly and was restricted almost suddenly on February 24, 2022. It largely said goodbye to serious, i.e. factual, critical (i.e. illuminating all aspects) and fact-based reports in favor of emotional and one-sided partisan reporting. Many essential aspects are also excluded that do not fit the simplified black and white narrative. What do you think is the cause of this one-sidedness and how do you assess the media coverage of the leading media in the USA – on your summit and on the Ukraine and Israel wars in general?

Well, the media in the United States – and internationally, really – are in a totally one-sided toward the propaganda that the governments put out. Here in the United States it was impossible for us to get any national media coverage for our very important counter summit. We did have some independent journalists who came and ultimately will be reporting on it, but none of the major TV stations, websites reported at all on it. We were not shocked, because the U.S. media does not cover that. It is a media that tragically is bought by the U.S. government and it reports what the U.S. government feels is important, not what the public should be knowing about. So, we do rely a lot on international coverage – you know, for various issues, like Aljazeera covering the war, the Israeli genocide of Gaza. We do have some independent groups like Mondoweiss or Palestine Eye and things like that. But they are very, very small in the media coverage scene. So, on the one level, sometimes we may get more international coverage. We had more international reporters that actually came to our rally at the White House on Sunday, than we had – we had absolutely zero U.S. media coverage at the rally at the White House from the United States. But we did have two TV stations from Slovakia and one from Finland. So, that was the only media coverage, that we got on that day.

So, it`s just like the same how in Germany it goes.

Last year we met at the Vienna Peace Summit and I talked to you about the peace negotiation process. You referred to the UN`s already existing guidelines for ceasefire agreements, with emphasis on two different phases of negotiations: the first – and anything but trivial – for a stable ceasefire as a basis for the second for a lasting peace. Since the first phase is consistently excluded, you explicitly pointed it out again in an article and explained the steps in detail.

Now, there are current events that suggest that the first phase of negotiations for a ceasefire may have begun: e.g. Putin’s offer to negotiate a ceasefire and just the day before yesterday Russia’s peace plan with the proposal to jointly administer Crimea, Orban’s trip to Kiev and Moscow with the main concern of a ceasefire, Glavchev’s offer to propose Bulgaria as a mediator for peace talks at the NATO summit or Zelensky’s rhetorical departure from the maximum demand, the restoration of the 1991 borders. How do you classify these processes? Are they a sign that we are moving into the first phase, or are they just another flash in the pan?

Well, we certainly hope, that they are an indicator that we`ll be moving forward on this. But, as stuck, as the U.S. is on apparently seeing Ukraine fight to the last person, I am not really too positive that this very important initiative by the Russian federation is going to go anywhere. Jeffrey Sachs has written an excellent article that talks about the number of times that the russian federation has made proposals for peace talks, for negotiations. They have been bowed by the United States and therefore then rebowed by Ukraine, each time. So, even though this is a very detailed proposal and it could happen very easily with all of the main actors here in Washington, I am not positive at all, that the United States will take up this proposal. President Zelensky is here in Washington and there will be side meetings of the United States with him, but I´m not positive at all, that the United States will move forward with this. Tragically! Because that means more and more people are going to get killed in Ukraine and in Russia. And it`s a terrible indicator of how warlike the United States continues to be.

Oh, that`s so sad. I had hope you had better news.

The message that came out of the NATO summit in Vilnius was: “NATO first, Ukraine later”. Ukraine should only become a member when it can no longer become an alliance case for NATO – so never. Zelensky was visibly upset and called it “unprecedented and absurd”. The assession would weaken NATO, so there was a conflict of objectives and NATO decided to strengthen itself. Article 1 of the final declaration states: “This summit marks a milestone in strengthening our alliance.” So that’s what it’s all about.

So today the crucial question is: Is it still about Ukraine or just about NATO? What interests does NATO (or the US, which dominates it) primarily pursue and is there a new geostrategic alignment?

Well, President Zelensky was upset a year ago and he`s still upset. The number of NATO countries that continue to do arms transfers to Ukraine is still large. But he can see – and the world can see – that NATO is shifting, shifting from Europe on to Asia and the Pacific. I live in Hawaii, and right now the realm of the Pacific Naval exercises, the largest naval war practice in the world, is going on. And 29 countries are participating, 8 of them are from NATO. So, NATO is moving into the Pacific. And their partnerships, that they`ve had with Columbia – now they have them with South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. It shows that NATO is not just a European or North American organization, it definitely is now, what we call: Global NATO. And that is a very worrisome development for all of us. This military alliance is now thinking that it is an alliance for any crisis anywhere in the world.

So, that`s the topic for my next question, so, you almost answered it. But I`ll read it:

Hardly noticed in Europe, whose attention is absorbed by the wars in Ukraine and in Israel, the situation in East Asia is more tense than ever before. A slow geopolitical revolution is taking place – NATO, which was once focused on the Atlantic, is turning to the Pacific.

The North Korean news agency KNCA wrote: “NATO’s “chariot” is racing towards the Asia-Pacific.“ And Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said: “We have seen what NATO has done in Europe. It must not now attempt to sow chaos here in the Asia-Pacific region or anywhere else in the world.” China’s Defense Ministry has accused NATO of being a warmonger. Wu Qian said: “It’s fair to say NATO is like a walking war machine, wherever it goes, there`ll be instability.”

As NATO celebrates its 75th anniversary, what do you think of the move to expand NATO’s sphere of influence into the Indo-Pacific? How should the world’s ongoing multipolarity be organized?

Well, as I mentioned, we`re certain in saying that NATO is very well becoming a global military alliance. I will add to what I mentioned previously, that we should have great concern about of what NATO countries are doing on the Israely genocide on Gaza, the weapons transfers of many NATO countries to Israel. It`s not just the United States that is providing weapons to Israel, although we are providing a great number of them, but Germany is providing weapons. And in fact, the German government has been sued by the Nicaraguan government for its complicity in the genocide, that the Israelis are conducting in Gaza. It is very, very troubling, that the NATO countries – whether it`s under the name of the alliance or because they`re all allied anyway,  and particularly when the U.S. gives an order – we need to support. We need to support Ukraine, we need to support Israel, that all of a sudden, all of these countries, do the bidding of the United States and send these weapons to further conflict.

I was called in November to be an expert witness at the UN Security Council on the issue of weapons transfers.

And that is the sum of what I spoke about, it was: as long as countries headed by the United States keep transferring weapons into these conflicts, then the conflicts will continue.

The only way to induce an ultimate end to the conflicts is to stop transferring these weapons.

And the UN Security Council wanted information about transfers into Ukraine.

I took the liberaty of talking about the weapons transfers that the United States and other countries were making into Israel, which was prolonging and still prolonging nine months later the Israel genocide of Gaza.

The NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 had the primary aim of creating a relationship of mutual trust in a common security and stability area by means of confidence-building measures and disarmament. For example, no militarily substantial NATO combat troops should be stationed in the new alliance states, and others should not be stationed permanently and nuclear weapons should be avoided. Today, thousands of – alone – Bundeswehr soldiers are permanently stationed in Lithuania. And President Andrzej Duda recently declared that Poland was ready to deploy NATO nuclear weapons. I have 2 questions about it:

1. Under these circumstances: Do you see any opportunity to break out of the escalation spiral and return to the original, comprehensively defined concept of security? And if so, what would be necessary and what realpolitical steps would have to be taken?

It`s horrible what`s happening in terms of the expansion of U.S. and NATO forces, in Poland, in Romania. The largest U.S. military base in Europe now is not in Germany, where it was for decades, but now in Poland. So, the expansion of U.S. militarism in Europe is proceeding in a rapid pace. And the number of military war practices, ground practices, are increasing. The largest defender exercises every other year are being held in Europe, the numbers of U.S. military and NATO military that are practicing right on the border of the Russian federation is definitely worries to President Putin, as it should be worries to all of us. Because if NATO is doing its war practice right on that border, then the only logical thing that the Russian federation can do is to protect itself from potentually an invasion, even though NATO and U.S. would say: “Oh, we`re not talking at all about an invasion, we`re just practicing.” But what are you listening for? But then when the Russian federation takes steps to protect itself then it`s: “Oh, the Russians are getting ready to invade everybody else.” And that`s used by the Baltic states to say: “We are the first ones that will be invaded and therefore, we have to increase our military and allow NATO to have all sorts of wargames in our countries.” So, the whole concept from 40 years ago has been thrown out the window. It`s not a cold war anymore, it`s a hot war, that`s going on. It`s a hot situation, that could very easily with miscalculation mistake turn into a full fledged military war.

Terrible! And absurd, because of NATO article 5.

2. This large-scale rearmament, the militarization of society and also the required “change in mentality” including the recruitment of young people is based on the constantly repeated claim, that Putin had (quote) “clearly said” that after the Ukraine they would attack other European countries.

Would demanding ultimate proof of this claim be a first step toward de-escalation (we are currently trying this in the Bundestag but have less hope) or how do you think we can penetrate with facts?

I`d like to add: There are other unproven allegations or even secrecy, such as the Nord Stream attack. This was an attack on our national security, but our government is turning the tables and saying that information about it affects our national security. Meanwhile, the NATO members Denmark and Sweden have stopped the investigation. That can actually only mean that “friendship” is relative in foreign policy relations or even in NATO, isn`t it?

Well, there`s certainly a lot of propaganda that each of the countries is putting out. And this whole thing that the Russian federation is ready to invade Europe all the way to the Atlantic Ocean is nonsense. I mean, that`s just pure propaganda. It`s so dangerous for international relations, what some of the governments are putting out, including the United States. I mean, this terrible incidence that have happened, the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines have not been formally investigated and publically reported on the results of the investigation. And the written and oral suspicions that governments have, that it wasn`t – I guess the word is, that it was Russia that blew up their own pipelines. How ridiculous is that? And who benefitted from the blowing up of it. It certainly was Russia who was making money out of it. Who ever blew it up, wanted to make sure that the Russian federation did not make any money out of this. And one of their primary means of financial transactions, the selling of gas and oil to European countries, that becomes foremost one of the sanctions on Russia. And to allow that pipeline to continue, in the view of – for certainly the United States – was breaking the sanctions. Now, for other countries that were benefitting from having a cheaper natural gas and oil coming in – we would question: Why would they want to blow up their source of cheaper fuel? So, the indications are not, that Russia blew it up – I mean for us, as Amateur detectives. That doesn`t make a bit of sense. And yet now we have, as you mentioned, that the investigations have been ended, although I would say, they know exactly what happenend. They`re just not making public, who actually did it.