|
CounterPunch
October
16, 2002
Can the UN be
Saved?
Mr. Bush, the Answer is in Your Hands
by DON KRAUS
On September 12th, President Bush asked, "will
the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will
it be irrelevant?"
In the wake of World War II we created
the United Nations primarily to ensure that weapons of mass destruction
would never be used. We established this organization after having
learned a hard lesson in two successive world wars - that national
ambitions must be contained and responded to by a collective
will, or men, women, and children everywhere will suffer the
consequences.
Although the United Nations is a flawed
organization - confined by its charter, subject to the whims
of its Member States, and chronically under-funded - it has so
far fulfilled its most basic mandate of preventing World War
III. Its member-states have preferred mutual survival to mutual
self-destruction. Today however, two evils threaten to destroy
this thin shield of self-interest.
In Iraq we face a brutal dictator with
a proven record of using chemical weapons who has flouted on
numerous occasions the collective will of the Security Council.
Madman Hussein could ignite the Middle East tinderbox -- engulfing
the region, perhaps the entire world, in a horrific war.
In the United States we face a President,
eager to take on the threat posed by Iraq and willing to unilaterally
attack it, even if it destroys the very institution that our
parents and grandparents created to contain such ambitions. This
should not be allowed to happen.
To be clear, the evils of George W. Bush
and Saddam Hussein are not in the same league. Bush threatens
to act unilaterally if the United Nations won't enforce its own
resolutions. Hussein invades Kuwait. Bush, in his new National
Security Strategy purports to seek a "balance of power that
favors human freedom: conditions in which all nations and all
societies can choose for themselves the rewards and challenges
of political and economic liberty." Hussein gasses Kurds.
But what makes the two leaders equally
problematic is that they both rely on national interest and national
sovereignty to legitimize their use of military might and coercive
force to achieve their aims. Both threaten to act outside of
international law, thereby decreasing human security while increasing
the potential of global warfare. This is where the United States
and Iraq should part company. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration's
new preemptive policy of acting against "emerging threats
before they are fully formed" undermines the basic principles
of the United Nations and collective security.
Although President Bush should be commended
for his recent push to pay U.S. arrears to the U.N. and rejoin
UNESCO, the majority of his foreign policy decisions have been
completely unilateral. Under his leadership, the U.S. has not
complied with Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, withdrawn from
the ABM treaty, scuttled efforts to create verification protocols
for the Biological Weapons Convention and Torture Convention,
imposed limits on the Chemical Weapons Convention, walked away
from the Kyoto Climate Change treaty, and unsigned the International
Criminal Court treaty. His administration's underlying distrust
of treaties and multilateral organizations like the U.N. has
soured relations with the European Union and other allies.
However, this downhill course could easily
be corrected by a "Nixon goes to China" change of heart.
If one ignores the reactionary isolationist paranoia of some
core Republican Party activists, there are legitimate reasons
to distrust the current international system. Too often, the
Security Council proffers toothless resolutions weakened by competing
national interests. Too many nations only comply with their treaty
obligations when convenient or when forced to. International
action is applied unevenly, too often driven by the media rather
than by principles.
Unfortunately the U.S. reaction to these
problems is to walk away from negotiations, weaken enforcement
regimes, or attempt to carve out exemptions. A more constructive
approach would be for a leader like President Bush to shed the
light of day on systemic problems and resolve to establish an
international system that works.
The United State's push for assertive
United Nations inspections in Iraq is useful. But consider the
positive impact U.S. efforts would have if President Bush simultaneously
supported a robust U.N. role in Kashmir, Sudan, Columbia, Israel/Palestine,
and other hot spots. What if he declared that violence is not
a legitimate means of settling political disputes and backed
it up with resources? Many would call it an unrealistic dream,
but imagine a well-funded United Nations, with U.N. police backing
up weapons inspectors. What about a universally accepted International
Criminal Court and a Security Council with a reformed veto that
did not water down most of its resolutions?
These and other reforms could be instituted
if the United States made a conscious decision to: 1) Actuate
U.S. rhetoric and work to establish genuine democratic governments
in every nation. This is a prerequisite for an empowered international
governance system to have a legitimate mandate. 2) Advocate a
system of enforceable international laws, with appropriate checks
and balances, which work for everyone - with no U.S. exemptions.
3) Put our money where our mouth is and invest the hundreds of
billions of dollars we are willing to spend on military campaigns
on international development.
Is this a dream? There once was a wise
old woman who knew the answer to everything. Seeking to fool
her, a young man approached her holding a tiny bird cupped in
his hands and asked, "Is this bird alive or dead?"
The old woman knew that if she said "alive", the young
man would crush the bird and kill it, and if she said "dead"
then the bird would be released to fly away. She pondered for
a moment and then simply said, "The answer in is your hands."
President Bush, will the United Nations
serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?
The answer is in your hands.
Don Kraus
is executive director of the Campaign for UN Reform--Dedicated
to Building a More Effective United Nations System. He can be
reached at: dkraus@cunr.org
Yesterday's
Features
Anthony Gancarski
Safe
and Sorry:
Notes on DC Snipers
Jeffrey St. Clair
Iraq
as Prison State
Uri Avnery
One Big
Hizballah
Richard Thieme
Flesh:
Letelier, Torture, Chile and the CIA
Ben Tripp
A Bird Lover's Guide to the Chickenhawks
Brian Willson
An Open Letter to Sen. John Kerry on Iraq
Aaron Michael Love
Israel and White Supremacy
Sani Rifati
The Roma
and Humanitarian Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- How to Change the Subject: Corporate Scandal and Pension
Reform as Weapons Against Warmongering;
- Padilla's Predecessor: Court Ruling Cites 1904 War
Against Mining Union;
- Adios Hitchens: the Dorian Gray of Our Time;
- Object of Suspicion: How the FBI Watched Janis Ian
From Birth;
- First Carter, Then Clinton,
Now Sen. John Edwards:
Another "New South" Slimeball;
- Corporate Crooks: Nature or Nurture?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
October 9,
2002
Hesham Hassaballa
Here
We Go Again:
Rev. Falwell's Slurs
Ann Pettifer
Brainwashing
in America
Anita Ramasatry
Airline Security Run Amok
Josh Frank
Iraq: It's
About Globalization
Rep. Cynthia
McKinney
Iraq:
the Double Standard
Robert Jensen
Bush's
Illogical War Speech
David Vest
Dylan in
Eugene
October 4,
2002
Ahmad Faruqui
The Anvil
of War and the Ailing American Economy
Norman Madarasz
The
Truth and Violence
of a Symbolic Act
William Hughes
Political
Show Trial for
Marwan Barghouti
Ron Jacobs
The Struggle
Against
Another Oil War
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Bush War
Plan:
Blind and Improvident
Michael Schwalbe
The
Costs of American Privilege
Ralph Nader
Holding
Politicians' Feet to the Fire on Corporate Crime
Robert Buzzanco
Pacifica
Caves in to Zionist Smear Campaign
October 3,
2002
Gary Leupp
Talking
to Your Kids About Fascism
Will Youmans
The New
Anti-Apartheid Movement: The Campaign to Divest from Israel
Deb Reich
Report from a Mad World
Todd Chretien & Sue Sandlin
"It's All About Power on the
Docks"
Kurt Nimmo
Poetry
as Treason
Amiri Baraka
Somebody
Blew Up America
Alexander
Cockburn
October Surprises
October 2,
2002
Carol Wolman,
MD
Is the
President Nuts?
Diagnosing Dubya
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Something
Rotten in Klamath
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|