U.S. against the civilized world

Part 1 of 2

AMID THE RUBBLES OF THE RECENT war in the Middle East --- first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq --- principally and arrogantly launched by the US and its so-called “coalition of the willing,” came the threat to world peace due to the marginalization of the United Nations as the epicenter of global diplomacy and international law, and more importantly, as repository of the civilized world’s only hope for a peaceful international community.

With America’s unilateral pre-emptive strikes against terrorism following the September 21, 2001 nightmare in New York and Washington, the US revealed to the world the gruesome terrorist side of what it means to be the world’s only superpower. With its military, economic and political might, America can now impose to the world its global interests, of course clothed and rationalized pejoratively in the guise of also being the world’s global concern.

Thus, America’s terrorist acts committed against sovereign states and peoples of both Afghanistan and Iraq produced a thousand-fold more destructive effect it claims it suffered in the hands of terrorists in September 2001.

The clear and unmistakable lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq --- and earlier in Vietnam, Kosovo, Somalia and elsewhere --- should lead us to only one sensible conclusion: the UN should be strengthened, not weakened, against the global terrorist threat of America.

League of Nations

The United Nations, as presently constituted and organized, had its roots in the Wilsonian dream of a peaceful international community following the conclusion of World War I (1917-1917). Then US President Woodrow Wilson proposed the creation of the League of Nations believing that peace-loving countries can readily give up parts of their sovereignty to a world body to keep the peace. What this belief meant was, if a country committed aggression against another, the League would then lead the global community to thwart and defeat the aggressor. Wilson, however, failed to convince US Congress to share his dream when it voted not to join the body --- perhaps one of Wilson’s most intriguing political rebuff in his entire career. Little did Wilson anticipate that his own country could well be the very aggressor state he had in mind at the time.

The League of Nations, notwithstanding its inherent structural and political infirmities, plodded on with its vision of a peaceful world. In the intervening years¸especially before outbreak of the World War 2, it dutifully nurtured the birthpangs of global diplomacy as a preferred alternative to war among nations. A noted historian remarked that the “ League was the first casualty of the 2nd World War.”

United Nations

Then came the birth of the United Nations following WW2 with the leaders of the victorious allies figuring how to deal with the League’s shortcomings. This time, however, the US joined the new organization recalling that had America heeded Wilson’s call to join the earlier League of Nations, WW2 could perhaps have been averted.

Structurally, the UN has as its highest body manning peace and security aspects of its collective mandate, the Security Council. It is composed of countries representing the postwar victorious allies, namely: US, UK, China, France and the former USSR. These countries hold permanent positions in the Council, each one armed with a veto power sufficient to defeat any proposals or decisions presented before it. The Council as a whole is composed of 15 member-countries, and except for the five veto-wielding permanent members, routinely apportioned and voted upon by the UN General Assembly.

The Council’s effectiveness and efficacy in implementing its decisions is based on the assumption that the interests of the five permanent members are similar. The birth of the Cold War in the aftermath of WW2, and through the decades of the 50s up to the early 90s (when the former USSR imploded), showed that the assumption was flawed from the very beginning. This was because alongside the peaceful global concerns of the UN as a body, there existed a bi-polar world led by the US and the USSR, each one maintaining a surrogate bloc of military-ready nations dutifully playing the baton of the two major powers: the Europe-based NATO for the US, and Warsaw Pact countries for the USSR.

The Cold War era clearly revealed that the interests of the Council’s two permanent members (US and USSR) were diametrically opposed --- a UN illusion shattered by the unfolding realities of international politics.

The Continuing Cold War

Then came the demise of the USSR in 1991, and with it, the Warsaw Pact. NATO, for its part, continued strengthening its military position in Europe even to this day. In Asia-Pacific, the US-inspired anti-communist bloc SEATO has had its heyday up the late 50s when America finally realized that it can already pursue unilaterally its military/security interests in the region, short of taking recourse to the expensive and roundabout SEATO.

America’s incursions in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia until its ”voluntary” withdrawal (read: defeat) from the former French Indochina in mid-70s proved the long-term futility of using military aggression as an instrument of foreign policy.

Yet, the US persisted doing its aggressive acts against countries where it feels its security interests are threatened. Their push for the division of Korea and Vietnam (1950s) was made possible/ justified through the ideological and political convulsions of the cold war era. This was likewise the case for the two Germany’s, following the fall of Hitler. Japan was spared from this divisive strategy, perhaps principally for economic reasons, as USs security interests have been effectively ensconced in Japan’s fundamental law --- the MacArthur-imposed Japanese Constitution. This document prevented Japan from forming a strong military, “save for defensive purposes.” Defeated Italy was also spared from being partitioned, in contrast to what happened in Germany.

The pursuit of America’s aggressive military interventions continued alternately within or outside the aegis of the United Nations and the Security Council. In 1950, the US successfully convinced the UN to intervene in Korea, so also during the first Gulf War against Iraq in 1991. The US, however, unilaterally aggressed and ignored the UN when it intervened in Kosovo in 1999, in Somalia, and in ethnically divided Rwanda in mid-1990s. It did so also in Afghanistan last year, and in Iraq, this year. *

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