Conghaileach
30th March 2003, 14:34
As a complete side note to ths article, Richard Perle recently had to step down because of corruption charges. At least that's what I've heard. - CB
- - - - -
from: Radio Progreso
www.rprogreso.com
=================
The UN in the Throes of Death
By Eduardo Dimas
----------------------------------------
"Thank God the UN is dead."
-- Richard Perle, Advisor to the Pentagon
-----------------------------------------
The sentence above is the headline of an article by Richard
Perle published in the Spanish daily El Mundo, on March 22,
2003, when U.S., British and Australian armed forces bombed
Iraq at the same time that they invaded its territory
without the UN Security Council's approval; a fact that
makes this war totally illegal according to international
law. What will the balance be of dead and wounded and the
destruction of enormous material and historical wealth?
In the first paragraph of Perle's article the author gloats
over the fact that "Saddam's reign of terror is about to
end." Perle adds that "the Iraqi leader will soon
disappear, but he will not go down alone: in an ironic
farewell he'll take the UN with him. Well, not all of the
UN. The part that does good work will remain, the low risk
pacifying bureaucracies will stay, and the Hudson charlatan
will go on complaining sadly. What will die will be the
fantasy that the UN is the basis for a new world order. When
the rubble is examined it will be important to keep, and
even more, understand, the intellectual shipwreck of liberal
presumption that claimed that security can be obtained
through international law administered by international
institutions."
But if the UN disappears, who will watch over international
security? The United States and a group of allied or
satellite nations, such as Israel? For it's obvious that
"the intellectual shipwreck of liberal presumption" is the
work of the White House's aggressive policies.
My objective is not to refute Mr. Perle's article, which is
offensive enough for nations such as France, Russia, China,
Syria, Cameroon and Angola, whose only sin has been not to
accept orders from the United States to approve a war not
supported by the overwhelming majority of humanity. I'd
rather like to explain why the United Nations Organization
is dying amidst its own contradictions and the unilateral
policy of the planet's only superpower.
The UN is what its most powerful members want it to be. No
more, no less. And presently there is only one country that
pretends to exert its dominion and impose its interests on
the whole planet. Others would like to do likewise, but they
can't. So the fact that the UN is dying should be linked
directly to White House policies, particularly after 9/11,
when it sought to impose on the world its new concept of
pre-emptive war. The New York Times March 18 digital edition
states, "There is no space in the United Nations charter for
the President's anticipated self defense preventive
doctrine."
Indeed, the UN was dealt a deadly blow since the U.S. and
NATO launched the war against Yugoslavia because of the
Kosovo conflict.
But The New York Times is right. According to the United
Nations Charter, its members "agree to honor the obligations
they have assumed, to resolve international disputes through
peaceful means, not to use threat or the use of force, to
participate in organized actions in concordance to the
Chart, not to help a country against which the UN has
directed those actions, and to act in accordance with the
Chart's principles."
Needless to say that President Bush's decision to proceed
unilaterally to attack Iraq under the excuse that it's a
threat to the national security of the United States, that
it has weapons of mass destruction and that it's linked to
terrorism -- accusations that have never been
demonstrated -- is in complete violation of the United
Nation's Charter. And when the U.S. Army "discovers"
chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, or documents that
link the Iraqi government to Al Qaeda, the alleged evidence
will have little credibility.
In a previous article (see "The New Distribution of the
Planet", Progreso Weekly, March 20-26, 2003) I wrote that
for the majority of international observers the true cause
for war against Iraq is not to disarm Saddam Hussein and
bring a democratic government to Iraq, but seize its oil and
indirectly to limit the expansion of the euro -- already
shadowing the dollar -- divide the European Union -- which
in part is has achieved -- deal the OPEC a deadly blow in
the near future, and consequently finish off the UN, for the
boundaries of international law are way too narrow for the
aggressive policy of the present U.S. Administration. The
oil power elite, the industrial military complex, but also
the rest of U.S. industries need new pieces of the world pie
in order to keep their winnings and the value of their
stocks. Maybe it's not "Every man for himself" in a new
territorial distribution of the world, but it certainly
looks like it.
And if the readers had the opportunity of following the
information about the steps taken by the U.S. government at
the UN, at the same time that it was sending hundreds of
thousands of troops and war materiel to the Middle East,
they would realize that besides efforts to obtain a Security
Council resolution that would back the aggression against
Iraq from the point of view of international law -- grossly
interpreted and even worse applied -- the war would have
been decided a long time ago.
It is said that Colin Powell convinced President Bush to try
to obtain a Security Council resolution that would give the
invasion of Iraq a legal veneer. Powell's role was to
ridicule himself at the Security Council presenting
manufactured evidence that convinced no one, except those
interested in participating in the aggression -- Great
Britain, Spain and one or other satellite, either well paid
or a victim of pressure and blackmail. Resolution 1441,
approved by the Council last fall, and now used to justify
war, is a real tongue twister that can be interpreted at
will. The concept "grave consequences" for Iraq if it doesn'
t disarm paves the way for the U.S. position, but does not
justify it. Thus, those who were opposed had every right to
do it, even though the White House did not like it.
Of course, those who opposed the war had economic and
political reasons and feared the consequences of their
stand. Remember that France, Russia and China have important
business dealings in Iraq that could be lost through war.
They also see limitations in their power and, particularly
Russia and China, know that they can be the object in a not
too distant future of similar pressures and threats, with
the difference that they do have weapons of mass
destruction.
The second resolution sponsored by the United States, Great
Britain and Spain was another attempt of obtaining the
Council's backing, although for several more suspicious
observers it was a grotesque way of abandoning the Security
Council and going to war. The United States did not withdraw
it because France and Russia would veto it, but simply
because they were not going to receive the necessary 9 votes
for approval, not even by using every possible pressure and
threat. So when in his March 17 speech President Bush gave
Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to leave Iraq or face
war, and he said that "the Security Council of the United
Nations has not fulfilled its responsibilities, and now it's
our turn," he was signing the UN's death sentence. It's
obvious that if the United States does not accept
international law the United Nations is useless. Bush had
already said at the Azores summit that the UN needs changes,
of course, not to make it more democratic, but to better
answer his government's interests.
That is why it seems pathetic as well as absurd, so as not
to print harsher words, the message of Secretary General
Kofi Annan when the bombings against Iraq began: "Perhaps
if we had persevered some more time Iraq could have been
disarmed peacefully, or at least, if it hadn't been so, the
world could have undertaken an action to solve this problem
with a collective decision, granting it a greater
legitimacy, and consequently a greater support of the one it
has now. But let us stop thinking in the divisions of the
past and let us face the realities of the present, even if t
hey are harsh, and let us search for a way of achieving a
greater unity in the future."
Those are not really the true objectives of the Bush
Administration. Remember that whoever is not with them is
with terrorism; that "God is not neutral", and we'll have an
idea of how the group that has taken over power in the U.S.
think. That's why, and not necessarily through "divine
inspiration", that Tom DeLay, Senate Majority Leader, said
that he wants the UN to leave the U.S., an old dream of
former senator Jesse Helms and of the Republican extreme
right, and one that has great chances of succeeding. I leave
to your imagination what the world and the international
community would become without the United Nations.
For many observers the planetary society is returning to the
situation it had before the First World War, but with a
distinctive difference: in the first years of the 20th
century there were several world powers. Now there is only
one superpower. And it's not willing to share global
domination or take no for an answer.
Journalist Eduardo Dimas is an international analyst and
commentator. He is also a professor at the University of
Havana's School of Communications.
[email protected]
- - - - -
from: Radio Progreso
www.rprogreso.com
=================
The UN in the Throes of Death
By Eduardo Dimas
----------------------------------------
"Thank God the UN is dead."
-- Richard Perle, Advisor to the Pentagon
-----------------------------------------
The sentence above is the headline of an article by Richard
Perle published in the Spanish daily El Mundo, on March 22,
2003, when U.S., British and Australian armed forces bombed
Iraq at the same time that they invaded its territory
without the UN Security Council's approval; a fact that
makes this war totally illegal according to international
law. What will the balance be of dead and wounded and the
destruction of enormous material and historical wealth?
In the first paragraph of Perle's article the author gloats
over the fact that "Saddam's reign of terror is about to
end." Perle adds that "the Iraqi leader will soon
disappear, but he will not go down alone: in an ironic
farewell he'll take the UN with him. Well, not all of the
UN. The part that does good work will remain, the low risk
pacifying bureaucracies will stay, and the Hudson charlatan
will go on complaining sadly. What will die will be the
fantasy that the UN is the basis for a new world order. When
the rubble is examined it will be important to keep, and
even more, understand, the intellectual shipwreck of liberal
presumption that claimed that security can be obtained
through international law administered by international
institutions."
But if the UN disappears, who will watch over international
security? The United States and a group of allied or
satellite nations, such as Israel? For it's obvious that
"the intellectual shipwreck of liberal presumption" is the
work of the White House's aggressive policies.
My objective is not to refute Mr. Perle's article, which is
offensive enough for nations such as France, Russia, China,
Syria, Cameroon and Angola, whose only sin has been not to
accept orders from the United States to approve a war not
supported by the overwhelming majority of humanity. I'd
rather like to explain why the United Nations Organization
is dying amidst its own contradictions and the unilateral
policy of the planet's only superpower.
The UN is what its most powerful members want it to be. No
more, no less. And presently there is only one country that
pretends to exert its dominion and impose its interests on
the whole planet. Others would like to do likewise, but they
can't. So the fact that the UN is dying should be linked
directly to White House policies, particularly after 9/11,
when it sought to impose on the world its new concept of
pre-emptive war. The New York Times March 18 digital edition
states, "There is no space in the United Nations charter for
the President's anticipated self defense preventive
doctrine."
Indeed, the UN was dealt a deadly blow since the U.S. and
NATO launched the war against Yugoslavia because of the
Kosovo conflict.
But The New York Times is right. According to the United
Nations Charter, its members "agree to honor the obligations
they have assumed, to resolve international disputes through
peaceful means, not to use threat or the use of force, to
participate in organized actions in concordance to the
Chart, not to help a country against which the UN has
directed those actions, and to act in accordance with the
Chart's principles."
Needless to say that President Bush's decision to proceed
unilaterally to attack Iraq under the excuse that it's a
threat to the national security of the United States, that
it has weapons of mass destruction and that it's linked to
terrorism -- accusations that have never been
demonstrated -- is in complete violation of the United
Nation's Charter. And when the U.S. Army "discovers"
chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, or documents that
link the Iraqi government to Al Qaeda, the alleged evidence
will have little credibility.
In a previous article (see "The New Distribution of the
Planet", Progreso Weekly, March 20-26, 2003) I wrote that
for the majority of international observers the true cause
for war against Iraq is not to disarm Saddam Hussein and
bring a democratic government to Iraq, but seize its oil and
indirectly to limit the expansion of the euro -- already
shadowing the dollar -- divide the European Union -- which
in part is has achieved -- deal the OPEC a deadly blow in
the near future, and consequently finish off the UN, for the
boundaries of international law are way too narrow for the
aggressive policy of the present U.S. Administration. The
oil power elite, the industrial military complex, but also
the rest of U.S. industries need new pieces of the world pie
in order to keep their winnings and the value of their
stocks. Maybe it's not "Every man for himself" in a new
territorial distribution of the world, but it certainly
looks like it.
And if the readers had the opportunity of following the
information about the steps taken by the U.S. government at
the UN, at the same time that it was sending hundreds of
thousands of troops and war materiel to the Middle East,
they would realize that besides efforts to obtain a Security
Council resolution that would back the aggression against
Iraq from the point of view of international law -- grossly
interpreted and even worse applied -- the war would have
been decided a long time ago.
It is said that Colin Powell convinced President Bush to try
to obtain a Security Council resolution that would give the
invasion of Iraq a legal veneer. Powell's role was to
ridicule himself at the Security Council presenting
manufactured evidence that convinced no one, except those
interested in participating in the aggression -- Great
Britain, Spain and one or other satellite, either well paid
or a victim of pressure and blackmail. Resolution 1441,
approved by the Council last fall, and now used to justify
war, is a real tongue twister that can be interpreted at
will. The concept "grave consequences" for Iraq if it doesn'
t disarm paves the way for the U.S. position, but does not
justify it. Thus, those who were opposed had every right to
do it, even though the White House did not like it.
Of course, those who opposed the war had economic and
political reasons and feared the consequences of their
stand. Remember that France, Russia and China have important
business dealings in Iraq that could be lost through war.
They also see limitations in their power and, particularly
Russia and China, know that they can be the object in a not
too distant future of similar pressures and threats, with
the difference that they do have weapons of mass
destruction.
The second resolution sponsored by the United States, Great
Britain and Spain was another attempt of obtaining the
Council's backing, although for several more suspicious
observers it was a grotesque way of abandoning the Security
Council and going to war. The United States did not withdraw
it because France and Russia would veto it, but simply
because they were not going to receive the necessary 9 votes
for approval, not even by using every possible pressure and
threat. So when in his March 17 speech President Bush gave
Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to leave Iraq or face
war, and he said that "the Security Council of the United
Nations has not fulfilled its responsibilities, and now it's
our turn," he was signing the UN's death sentence. It's
obvious that if the United States does not accept
international law the United Nations is useless. Bush had
already said at the Azores summit that the UN needs changes,
of course, not to make it more democratic, but to better
answer his government's interests.
That is why it seems pathetic as well as absurd, so as not
to print harsher words, the message of Secretary General
Kofi Annan when the bombings against Iraq began: "Perhaps
if we had persevered some more time Iraq could have been
disarmed peacefully, or at least, if it hadn't been so, the
world could have undertaken an action to solve this problem
with a collective decision, granting it a greater
legitimacy, and consequently a greater support of the one it
has now. But let us stop thinking in the divisions of the
past and let us face the realities of the present, even if t
hey are harsh, and let us search for a way of achieving a
greater unity in the future."
Those are not really the true objectives of the Bush
Administration. Remember that whoever is not with them is
with terrorism; that "God is not neutral", and we'll have an
idea of how the group that has taken over power in the U.S.
think. That's why, and not necessarily through "divine
inspiration", that Tom DeLay, Senate Majority Leader, said
that he wants the UN to leave the U.S., an old dream of
former senator Jesse Helms and of the Republican extreme
right, and one that has great chances of succeeding. I leave
to your imagination what the world and the international
community would become without the United Nations.
For many observers the planetary society is returning to the
situation it had before the First World War, but with a
distinctive difference: in the first years of the 20th
century there were several world powers. Now there is only
one superpower. And it's not willing to share global
domination or take no for an answer.
Journalist Eduardo Dimas is an international analyst and
commentator. He is also a professor at the University of
Havana's School of Communications.
[email protected]