A few days ago, on the 20th anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda Islamists, which claimed nearly three thousand lives in the United States, the whole world sympathised with the people of the United States. However, Mesec’s Levica party (the Left) published a short article on its website, entitled “20 Years after 9/11,” which was a slap in the face for all those killed in the horrific terrorist attacks. The Levica party also made sure to use the same old empty phrases about the exit from NATO, even though Slovenia’s membership in it was voted and decided on in a referendum.
While it was clear to all of us that human lives do not mean much to the members of the fanatical Levica party, no one thought they would stoop so low as to gloat over the civilian victims of the terrorist attacks. But that is exactly what happened a few days ago, when the Levica party published an article on its official website, in which the party showed its extremely contemptuous attitude towards nearly three thousand human lives that were lost when, 20 years ago, al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked planes which then crashed into the US Pentagon building in Washington and the World Trade Centre in New Work. The Levica party thus tried to relativise the victims of the 9/11 attacks and reduce the tragedy of the event itself by bringing to light data on the alleged 800,000 people killed in the so-called war on terrorism, and then the party also claimed that what American politicians and the military had been doing around the world for decades had happened on the 11th of September in the United States, although even when trying as hard as possible, one cannot recall any instance in which American politicians or the army hijacked civilian passenger planes and crashed into a building in a suicide mission.
They went on to trivialise the terrorist attacks even more by claiming that the United States responded to the events with an “even more intense war devastation of the Middle East, which left hundreds of thousands of people dead, millions displaced, a simmering civil war, and even worse economic and social destruction of the region.” At this point, it becomes clear to anyone who knows something about what has been going on in the last decade that the Levica party simply knows nothing about history because if they did, they would know that the US’s response to 9/11 was not an attack on the Middle East, but action against the Taliban in Central Asia’s Afghanistan, which has very little to do with the Middle East. In their article, the Levica party also constantly repeats phrases about the so-called “American imperialism” while categorically rejecting the imperialist policies of other superpowers (for example, the Soviet Union, the forerunner of present-day Russia, which invaded Afghanistan just decades before the US, killing an incomparably higher number of people and committing a series of bloody massacres of the Afghanistan population).
They want to add Slovenia to the list of poor countries
The article goes on to say that “the victims of the war in Afghanistan are in fact the people in the countries of the imperial centre, who paid trillions (thousands of millions) of euros for the NATO military escapades. This money could have instead been spent on social development, social welfare, health, science and research, and the fight against climate change at home.” Not only does no one know where this famous imperial centre might be, but such statements are made by the “forever students” of the Levica party, despite the fact that the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) are, according to all of the global indexes, among the most economically developed, socially secure, ecologically conscious, democratic and tolerant, and they are also responsible for the remarkable progress of science and medicine. But this is clearly not important to the members of this radical eco-socialist current, as they would obviously prefer to withdraw from NATO and join their beloved socialist countries – Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela – which all have a truly enviable economy, social protection and health care systems, as well as, of course, a high level of democracy and human rights.
They ended the stream of their “wise thoughts” with pompous sentences about the possibility of terrorist attacks being present “until the resistance of the working people and oppressed peoples around the world breaks the imperialism of the country of the world centre. That is why now is the time to loudly demand the withdrawal from the NATO pact and its dissolution, the end of the war escapades on the other side of the hemisphere, and the end of subsidising the military-industrial complex.” The first sentence, which is quite strongly reminiscent of the vehement Marx and Engles slogans from the Communist Manifesto, once again refers to the so-called “countries of the world centre,” and although from the writing of the Levica party it is not clear whether this celebrated world centre would also include, for example, mainland China (which borders on 14 countries, but has territorial ambitions in the territory of 23 different countries, and is imperialistically spreading its influence throughout Africa, Latin America, and the majority of Asia with the policy of the so-called “Debt Tramp”), it can be concluded that this mysterious “world centre” definitely includes the whole of Europe and North America (so, again, countries with the highest levels of democracy, respect, human rights, health and social security).
But what is even more concerning than the first sentence is the second sentence, in which Mesec and his colleagues are calling for Slovenia’s withdrawal from the NATO pact. At this point, the worshipers of the Levica party should be reminded that Slovenia joined this defence alliance on the basis of an invitation from George Robertson, the then-Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, who invited our country to join the alliance at the NATO Summit in Prague on the 21st of November 2002, and the government received the formal invitation only a few days later, on the 26th of November 2002. But what is even more important is the fact that a consultative referendum on Slovenia’s accession to NATO (as well as the European Union) was held before Slovenia actually joined NATO on the 23rd of March 2003, and here it should clearly be emphasised that the result of the referendum was formally and legally binding and unrepeatable. In the referendum, as many as two-thirds of the participants voted in favour of joining NATO. Namely, 673.882 voters (which is comparable to the number of people who voted “against” in the July water referendum – 677, 119) wanted to join the alliance. Any platitudes about leaving NATO thus represent an inadmissible negation of the will of Slovenian voters, who voted for Slovenia’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in a democratically conducted referendum, which was binding – and that means that the Government of the Republic of Slovenia is absolutely obliged to respect its results. The referendum was also unrepeatable, which means that it is not permissible to call a referendum on the same issue again. It is interesting that in recent months, the Levica party has been extremely vocal about the rejection of the amendments to the Water Act (ZV-1G) and has declared it an “indisputable expression of the will of the people,” “people’s distrust of the government,” and so on; however, in the case of the referendum on joining NATO, they are now shouting that it should be annulled, despite the fact that about as many people voted for the NATO membership as they did against the Water Act, and despite the fact that the Slovenian political leadership has always agreed that Slovenia’s membership in the North Atlantic Alliance is an advantage and not a disadvantage – both at the time of accession, as well as today.
Matej Markič
