Scotland - a convenient launching pad for NATO's war machine
Jane Bradley (Scotsman, Feb 28) lays bare the UK’s contempt for Scotland. In a 2023 Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee report Scotland is described as a “physical asset… a convenient launching platform for planes and ships, commercial or military, active in the region.” UK Defence minister James Heappey claims NATO would be “incredibly concerned” if it lost access to Scotland’s Faslane and Lossiemouth bases. I bet it would. So would England – the bases would have to move south.
The fact that Scots strongly oppose having nuclear weapons on our soil doesn’t matter to Westminster. It always ignores Scotland’s concerns.
Public safety is regularly compromised. Six times a year, 20-truck convoys trundle warheads between Aldermaston in Berkshire to the Royal Navy’s arms depot at Coulport on Loch Long. At least 40 safety ‘incidents’ have been logged since 2020 - crashes, brake faults, road accidents, breakdowns and power failures. Between 2008-2017, the MoD logged 157 such ‘incidents.’
Most Scots are unaware that nuclear warheads are routinely moved on our main public roads and through urban areas.
Then there’s the bigger question of not only why NATO exists post-Cold War, but also why it has doggedly expanded eastwards, despite the US repeatedly assuring Russia that it wouldn’t.
In September 2023, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg let slip that America’s relentless push to enlarge NATO to Ukraine was the real cause of the war. Just imagine how the US would respond if Russia were to incorporate Canada or Mexico as members of a military alliance. Of course, Russia has no such military alliance.
The tragedy is that Scotland is voiceless within the failing UK. It’s a colonial appendage to a state hellbent on extracting as much wealth as it can before it discards the empty and polluted husk.
Will we act before then?