damn the UN! - i am extremely distressed

[dopediana]

how could they lift the economic sanctions and put control of all iraq's oil profits in the hands of the USA? that's justifying american intervention in iraq! what will the rest of the world say?

&$#&^%(&%%%%#(_)*)&^$(&^(

[Anonymous]

I think its just a case of a situation which they dont think they can win and want to make the cave-in look good on their side.

How do you think they would look if they challenged America and lost, complete end to all credibillity.

Looks like there is no-one left to challenge America's power no, no-one to hold them accountable.

[dopediana]

why did you have to just come out and say it like that?!?!?!

that UN decision has totally depressed my whole family...

say something optimistic...

[canikickit]

The UN is a corrupted mess. There's nothing optimistic about it. Forget about the UN, fuck those guys, they're just the same as Bush and all his good ol' boys.

[WUOrevolt]

The U.N. is just in a tough situitation right now. They were losing popularity internationally because of their support for France, Germany, and Russia and those countries opposition to the war. Then operation Oily Residue(more commonly known as Operation Iraqi Freedom) and america showed its arrogant superpower and succeeded in overthrowing Saddam Hussien(and killing lots of Iraqi's). Now the conservatives are discrediting the U.N. So the U.N. is put in a very tough situitation to be in. They are going to either be blamed for all the troubles going on in Iraq or they are gonna go along with the U.S. to not be discredited as much. So they just went along with the U.S just to go along with what seems to be popular vote and not be blamed for the troubles of Iraq.(They shouldn't have put the Iraqi oil in the hands of the U.S.)

[Zombie]

the UN is another american institution, or at least one who likes to suck a lot of american balls.

I don't recall it being any helpful in the past, specially regarding the Israel-Palestine issue. In fact, it's utterly useless, and this was once again proven by the way it handled the Iraqi conflict.

The UN was damned a long time ago, I'm not really surprised at what it's doing now. It's only a matter of time before it becomes totally obsolete.

.A.

[dopediana]

see, i cant even conjugate "distress"

what i meant was "i am extremely distraught"

[redstar2000]

It doesn't seem to me that the United Nations has ever been more than a servant of U.S. imperialism. I daresay some of its "social work" agencies may have done some good humanitarian work--when they had the money--but in political terms, I can't think of a single instance where the UN has forthrightly made a decision against the will of the U.S. ruling class.

The City Council of Dogturd, Nebraska has more influence in Washington, D.C. than the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Forget that silly charade.

:cool:

[praxis1966]

why did you have to just come out and say it like that?!?!?!

that UN decision has totally depressed my whole family...

say something optimistic...According to Paul Kennedy in his book Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679720197/qid=1053676335/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/103-6522557-8415812), the nature of a "superpower" is to upset the balance of power. When this occurs, the rest of the world has a tendency to rise up in opposition and topple said "superpower". Just look at 19th century France, The Holy Roman Empire (otherwise known as the Hapsburg Empire), or Germany in either of the two World Wars. It might be a while before we see such a unification, but it will happen. The rest of the world has history on its side, which is a much more powerful thing than a smart bomb or F-22.

[Ian]

(This is a really good article, a bit outdated, but it is interesting)

Tariq Ali on the `United Nations of America'

BY TARIQ ALI

The emergence of a mass anti-war movement shows a complete distrust of official politics. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the London Financial Times crowed that it would finish off the anti-capitalist movement. No such luck, gents. The opposite has happened. A new generation has realised that the politicians who preach neoliberal economics at home are the same people who make wars abroad, and for the same interests. How could it be otherwise?

In Britain, a majority is opposed to the looming war. It is the first war situation since Suez in 1956 in which there are more doves in the UK than hawks. Then, the Labour Party and its leader Hugh Gaitskell came out against the invasion of Egypt. This time, the anti-war movement confronts a virtually uniform House of Commons. Both front benches are united.

However, the British peace movement has a soft underbelly. According to opinion surveys, a war that is unjustifiable if waged by US President George Bush and British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair alone becomes acceptable to a large majority (more than 60%) if sanctioned by the “international community” (i.e. the UN Security Council).

Is it? This level of confusion raises a number of questions about the UN today. Who does it represent? Does it matter anymore? Do its resolutions carry any weight if opposed by the US, as has repeatedly been the case with Palestine and Kashmir? And does membership of the Security Council reflect the realities of today's world?

Unipolar world
In the absence of a countervailing power since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has been able to impose its model of economics, politics and culture on the world at large.

International organisations such as the UN and its ill-fated predecessor, the League of Nations, were created to institutionalise a new status quo, one arrived at after two bloody conflicts — the first and second world wars. Both organisations were founded on the basis of defending the right of nations to self-determination. In both cases their charters outlawed pre-emptive strikes and big-power attempts to occupy countries or change regimes. Both stressed that the nation states had replaced empires.

The League of Nations was unable to resist Italian dictator Mussolini's imperial ambitions. The institution collapsed soon after the Italian fascists occupied Ethiopia.

The UN was created after the defeat of fascism. Its structures reflected the new order. Its charter expressly prohibits the violation of national sovereignty except in the case of “self-defence”. However, despite the presence of the Soviet Union, the UN was unable to defend the newly independent Congo against Belgian and US intrigue in the 1960s or to save the life of the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. And in 1950, the Security Council took advantage of a temporary Soviet boycott to authorise a US war in Korea.

Under the UN banner, the Western armies deliberately destroyed dams, power stations and the infrastructure of social life in North Korea, plainly in breach of international law. The UN was also unable to stop the US war in Vietnam. Its paralysis over the occupation of Palestine has been visible for over two decades.

This masterly inactivity was not restricted to Western abuses. The UN was unable to act against the Soviet invasion of Hungary (1956) or the Warsaw Pact's entry into Czechoslovakia (1968). Both big powers were, in other words, allowed to get on with their business in clear breach of the UN charter.

But then there was one. In the unipolar world of today, with the US as the dominant military-imperial state, the Security Council has become a venue for trading, not insults, but a share of the loot. The Italian theorist most feared by the fascists of the last century predicted this turn of events with amazing prescience.

“The `normal' exercise of hegemony”, wrote Antonio Gramsci, “is characterised by the combination of force and consent, in variable equilibrium, without force predominating too much over consent”. There were, Gramsci elaborated, occasions when it was more appropriate to resort to a third variant of hegemony, because “between consent and force stands corruption-fraud, that is the enervation and paralysing of the antagonist or antagonists”.

Here we have an exact description of the process used to buy French and Russian support at the UN Security Council for resolution 1441, as was made clear by a remarkably straightforward front-page headline in the October 4 Financial Times: “Putin drives hard bargain with US over Iraq's oil: Moscow wants high commercial price for its support.”

No shelter for the weak
European allies shuffle their feet at excessive US “unilateralism” — essentially, discomfiting failures to consult, which serve as a cover for European subordination. China and Russia bargain weakly in return for their favours in the Security Council. If these are not forthcoming, action is taken anyway.

The UN offers no shelter to the weak against the soldiers of infinite justice or the bombs of enduring freedom. There are 189 member states of the UN. There is, according to US defence department figures, a US military presence in 120 countries today. The United Nations of America?

The UN has, in the past, created organisations such as UNESCO and the World Health Organisation, which have benefited the world. But in these days of neoliberal governance, it is an ethos of consumption, rather than well-meaning social welfare organisations, that rules the roost.

The world has changed so much over the last two decades that the UN has become an anachronism, a permanent fig leaf for new imperial adventures.

The last UN secretary-general to be elected with only one vote against (from the US) was removed after he insisted that the Rwandan genocide needed intervention (US interests required a presence in the Balkans instead). Madeleine Albright, the then US secretary of state, demanded and obtained the removal of the man who had dared challenge the imperial will — Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He was replaced by the current incumbent, Kofi Annan, a weak and pathetic placeman, whose sanctimonious speeches may sometimes deceive an innocent British public, but not himself. He knows who calls the shots. He knows who provides the song-sheet.

The League of Nations collapsed after the “pre-emptive” strikes carried out by Hitler and Mussolini. Hitler used to argue that his invasions were provoked by the threatening attitudes of nations like Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, etc. Mussolini defended his invasion of Albania by arguing that he was removing the “corrupt”, feudal and oppressive regime of King Zog and newsreels showed grateful Albanians applauding the entry of Italian troops.

The actors have changed, but the script remains the same. And if the Security Council green lights the invasion and occupation of Iraq (as it is bound to do), then the UN too will die a long overdue death.

In the meantime the anti-war movement must explain patiently why a UN-backed war would be as immoral and unjust as the one being plotted in the Pentagon. That is because it will be the same war, give or take a few of Chirac's mercenaries
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2003/527/527p22.htm

(Edited by Ian Rocks at 9:12 am on May 23, 2003)

[dopediana]

well, i hope that like the roman empire did, the american empire will fall.