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Recent
Stories
April
9, 2003
Doug
Lummis
Saving Private Lynch: Hollywood and
War
Susan
Davis
The New York Times and the Peace Movement
David Vest
Smoking Gun? You're Watching It
John
Chuckman
America's Sovereign Right to Do
as It Damn Well Pleases
Akiva
Eldar
Gary Bauer and AIPAC: an Unholy Alliance
with the Christian Right
Ray
Hanania
Suicide Bombers without the Suicide:
Racism, Hypocrisy and the War on Iraq
David Lindorff
Secret Bechtel Docs Reveal: Yes,
the War Is About Oil
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/9
April
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Killing the Messengers: It Doesn't
Matter If It's Deliberate or Accidental
Richard
Lichtman
Dr. Phil in the Trenches
John
Brown
Why Uncle Ben Hasn't Sold Uncle Sam:
a Former Foreign Service Staffer on Bush's Policy Failures
Ben
Terrall
Report from the Oakland Docks: "The
Cops Had No Reason to Open Up on Them"
Jason Leopold
FERC and Wall Street: Conversations
May Have Violated Federal Law
Anthony
Gancarski
Conyers Heeds the Call on Perle
Linda Heard
Journalists Die, the Networks Lie, Iraqis Ask "Why?"
Ahmad
Faruqui
Wallowing in Hypocrisy
Wallace
Gagne
Baghdad Babble
Harry
Browne
Report from the Protests at the Bush/Blair
Summit
Larry Kearney
I Understand There's a Boy in
a Baghdad Hospital
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/8
M. Shahid
Alam
The Israelization of America
April
7, 2003
Todd
Chretien
Wooden Bullets & Grenades: Oakland
Cops Attack Peace Protesters and Dock Workers
David
N. Gibbs
Spying, Secrecy and the University:
The CIA is Back on Campus
Harry Browne
War and Peace Summit a Royal Farce
Gideon
Levy
America is Not a Role Model
Diane
Christian
A Scene from an Obscene War
Jules
Rabin
Remembering Deir Yassin
James Davis
Oddsmaking in Dublin: Will Bush
Shake Gerry's Hand?
Robert
Fisk
The Twisted Language of War
Patrick
Cockburn
Slaughter on the Road to Dibagah
John
Mackay
War and Art
Seth Sandronsky
Wars and the Color Line
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/7
April
5, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is
in Shambles
Anne
Gwynne
A Drowning in Salem
Uri
Avnery
Roadmap to Nowhere
Chris
Floyd
Hell for Leather: Bombs, Bullets, Bibles and Bush
William
Cook
Would You Have Sent Your Son (or Daughter) Off to War If...
Gila
Svirsky
A Busy Day for Bulldozers
Mike Ferner
Back from Baghdad: What Next for the Peace Movement?
Joanne
Mariner
Civilian Deaths and Official Apologies
John Stanton
Bush Takes His Killing Orders
from the Lord
Romi
Mahajan
Learning to Count the Dead
Aluf Benn
After Iraq, US Vows to Deal with
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Mary
Ellen Peterson
Gay Marine Refuses to Fight
William
MacDougall
Country Music and the Crimes of Patriotism
Ron
Jacobs
War and Occupation
Bernie
Pattison
Aborigines and the Different God
Mark
Engler
Iraq War as Arms Expo
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Li'l Box of Love: a Novelini
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Tripp, Albert, Katz
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Flesh and Its Discontents: the Paintings of Lucian Freud
Norman
Madarasz
Canada and the War
April
4, 2003
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame
John
Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?
David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support
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Adam
Federman
The Absence of War
Vijay
Prashad
There Are No More Arguments
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Stephens
The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
Makes Me Sic (Sic): Copy Editing
Bush Speak
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Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality
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The Deadly Mihrab
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Perry
War Web Log 04/04
April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
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Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
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Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
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From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Bruce
Jackson
Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/03
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April 10,
2003
What Can the World Do?
Uniting for
Peace
By JEREMY BRECHER
Despite the presence of U.S. troops in the center
of Baghdad, does the world remain powerless to stop the ongoing
invasion? The answer is no. Under a procedure called "Uniting
for Peace," the UN General Assembly can demand an immediate
ceasefire and withdrawal. The global peace movement should consider
demanding such an action, and support efforts already underway
in the UN to enact such a resolution.
When Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal
in 1956, Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt and began
advancing on the Suez Canal. President Dwight D. Eisenhower demanded
that the invasion stop. Resolutions in the UN Security Council
called for a ceasefire--but Britain and France vetoed them. Then
the United States appealed to the General Assembly and proposed
a resolution calling for a ceasefire and a withdrawal of forces.
The General Assembly held an emergency session and passed the
resolution. Britain and France withdrew from Egypt within a week.
The appeal to the General Assembly was
made under a procedure called "Uniting for Peace" (UfP).
This procedure was adopted by the Security Council so that the
UN can act even if the Security Council is stalemated by vetoes.
Resolution 377 provides that, if there is a "threat to peace,
breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and the permanent
members of the Security Council do not agree on action, the General
Assembly can meet immediately and recommend collective measures
to UN members to "maintain or restore international peace
and security." The "Uniting for Peace" mechanism
has been used ten times, most frequently on the initiative of
the United States to overcome vetoes or the threat of a veto
by the Soviet Union during the cold war.
The Security Council is effectively stalemated
between the U.S. and the UK on one side and global public opinion
and most governments in the world, including France and Russia,
on the other. The U.S. would undoubtedly use its veto should
the Security Council attempt to condemn and halt its aggression.
But the U.S. has no veto in the General Assembly.
Lawyers at the Center for Constitutional
Rights drafted a proposed UfP resolution that governments can
submit to the General Assembly. Such a resolution would declare
that military action without a Security Council resolution authorizing
such action and in the absence of an act or threat of aggression
is contrary to the UN Charter and international law.
A General Assembly resolution will not
in itself stop the war. General Assembly actions may not be legally
binding. Besides, the Bush administration has already shown it
is willing to defy the UN and international law. Nonetheless,
such a resolution would be a major blow to the Bush administration--as
its campaign to prevent a General Assembly session indicates.
What, then, is the purpose of such a resolution?
First, a UfP resolution will intensify
the fear of global isolation among the U.S. public and elite.
Such fears will play a significant role in turning them not only
against the Iraq war but more generally against the Bush administration
policy of pre-emptive war and global domination.
Second, a UfP resolution will provide
a heightened legitimacy to all the actions of the global peace
movement. All its actions in every country will become not merely
the expression of an opinion but efforts to implement the decision
of the world's highest authority.
Third, a UfP resolution will lay the
basis for future UN action; both regarding Iraq and more broadly,
that can circumvent the U.S. veto. It can thus provide the starting
point for reconstituting the UN as the voice of the world.
Finally, a worldwide campaign for UfP
provides the global peace movement--the world's "other superpower"--two
valuable opportunities:
* It provides a great focus for struggle
in the streets and in the political arena.
* It will allow the movement to show
its global clout.
Supporters of the UfP resolution include
a range of civil society organizations in addition to the Center
for Constitutional Rights and Greenpeace such as Britain's Campaign
for Nuclear Disarmament, religious groups, and international
women's organizations, including MADRE, Women of Color Resource
Center, Center for Women's Global Leadership, and the International
Women's Human Rights Law Clinic.
The UfP also offers a vehicle into the
formal political process, where parliaments can demand that their
governments support UfP. The Russian Duma, for example, recently
passed a resolution calling for General Assembly intervention
in Iraq; so did the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs
of Thailand. Political parties provide another arena: the Czech
Republic's governing Social Democratic party, whose government
has waffled on the war, just voted nearly unanimously to condemn
it. (The motion was sponsored by Czech UN Ambassador Jan Kavan,
who happens also to be current President of the UN General Assembly.)
The peace movement should take the UfP
resolution at least as seriously as the Bush administration does.
Wide public advocacy will help governments overcome their probable
reluctance to take such a step. While the fate of a resolution
is uncertain, even the threat of such global condemnation may
help push the Bush administration to pay greater attention to
civilian casualties, accelerate the delivery of humanitarian
relief, or respond more favorably to calls for a more central
role for the UN in post-war Iraq.
Jeremy Brecher
is a historian and the author of twelve books including STRIKE!
and GLOBALIZATION
FROM BELOW. He can be reached at: jbrecher@igc.org.
Information on Uniting for Peace based
on "A U.N. Alternative
to War: 'Uniting for Peace" by Michael Ratner, Center
for Constitutional Rights and Jules Lobel, University of Pittsburgh
Law School.
Today's
Features
Doug
Lummis
Saving Private Lynch: Hollywood and
War
Susan
Davis
The New York Times and the Peace Movement
David Vest
Smoking Gun? You're Watching It
John
Chuckman
America's Sovereign Right to Do
as It Damn Well Pleases
Akiva
Eldar
Gary Bauer and AIPAC: an Unholy Alliance
with the Christian Right
Ray
Hanania
Suicide Bombers without the Suicide:
Racism, Hypocrisy and the War on Iraq
David Lindorff
Secret Bechtel Docs Reveal: Yes,
the War Is About Oil
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/9
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