From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: The Decline of America: America "Stands Tall" in U.N. Vetoes since 1980
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 04:21:57 GMT

The Decline of America: America "Stands Tall" in U.N. Vetoes since 1980

         Security council vetoes, 1980-91:(17)

==================================================================
	       COUNTRY         VETOES SINCE 1980  
==================================================================
	       United States        48 
	       USSR                  4 
	       China                 0 
	       United Kingdom       15 
	       France                7                       
==================================================================
Source: United States Mission to the United Nations.
==================================================================

From page 114 of _We're Number One_ (see bottom)



    "Big countries, with powerful military machines
     should not be permitted to invade, occupy and
     brutalize their peaceful neighbors."
             
                     -- Secretary of State James Baker
                        January 9, 1991, speaking about 
                        Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

    "One of the goals of the operation -- to minimize 
     casualties and to minimize damage... But what you
     have to remember,...it was a war."

                     -- Pentagon Spokesman Pete Williams
                        August 1990, speaking about the
                        U.S. invasion of Panama.


[From articles on Gulf by Noam Chomsky (footnoted; from Z magazine)
posted to misc.activism.progressive:]

"U.N. peacekeeping efforts have regularly been frustrated by the
United States.  The first post-Cold War U.N. session (1989-90)
was typical in this regard.  Three Security Council resolutions
were vetoed, all by the U.S.  Two condemned George Bush's
murderous invasion of Panama, the third condemned Israeli human
rights abuses; the U.S. vetoed a similar resolution the following
May.  Britain and France joined the U.S. in blocking one of the
resolutions on Panama; the other, condemning U.S. violations of
diplomatic rights, was voted 13-1, Britain abstaining.  The
General Assembly passed two resolutions calling on all states to
observe international law.  The U.S. voted against both, alone
with Israel.  The first condemned the continuing U.S. support for
the contras, the second, U.S. economic warfare against Nicaragua
-- both declared "unlawful" by the World Court, but irrelevantly,
by the standards of the U.S. and its allies.  A resolution
condemning the acquisition of territory by force passed 151-3
(U.S., Israel, Dominica); this was yet another call for a
political settlement of the Arab-Israel conflict, which the U.S.
has blocked for 20 years.

The U.S. is far in the lead in the past 20 years in Security
Council vetoes.  Britain is second, France a distant third, and
the USSR fourth.  The situation is similar in the General
Assembly, where the U.S. regularly votes against resolutions on
aggression, international law, human rights abuses, disarmament,
and other relevant issues, often alone, or with a few client
states.  That has been the pattern since the U.N. ceased to serve
as a virtual instrument of U.S. foreign policy.  There is no
reason to expect that the Soviet collapse will induce the U.S.
and Britain to end their campaign against international law,
diplomacy, and collective security -- a campaign that had little
to do with the Cold War, as a look at cases shows.  The record
offers no prospects for a bright new era.

"The actual stance of the U.S. was made clear during the debate
over its invasion of Panama, when U.N. Ambassador Thomas
Pickering lectured the Security Council on the meaning of Article
51 of the Charter, which restricts the use of force to
self-defense against armed attack until the Council acts.  These
words permit the U.S. to use "armed force...to defend our
interests," Pickering explained to his backward students.  The
same Article permits the U.S. to invade Panama to prevent its
"territory from being used as a base for smuggling drugs into the
United States," the Justice Department added.  Washington has
even claimed the right of "self-defense against future attack"
under Article 51 (justifying the terror bombing of Libya).  In
brief, like other states, the U.S. will do what it chooses,
regarding law and principle as ideological weapons, to be used
when serviceable, to be discarded when they are a nuisance.  We
do no one any favors by suppressing these truisms.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    The US has regularly rejected other peace proposals, vetoed
    Security Council resolutions, and voted against General Assembly
    resolutions calling for a political settlement.  In December 1990,
    the General Assembly voted 144-2 (US and Israel) to call an
    international conference.  A year before, the Assembly voted 151-3
    (US, Israel, Dominica) for a settlement incorporating the wording
    of UN Resolution 242, along with "the right to self-determination"
    for the Palestinians.@note{Paul Lewis, @u<NYT>, Jan 12, 1991; UN
    Draft A/44/L.51, 6 Dec. 1989.} The NATO allies, the USSR, the Arab
    states, and the nonaligned countries have been united for years in
    seeking a political settlement along these lines, but the US will
    not permit it, so the peace process remains "hypothetical."

******************************************************************

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  
_We're Number One, Where America Stands -- and Falls -- in the New    
World Order_ by Andrew L Shapiro.   

New York, May 1992, Vintage Books, a division of Random House.   
$10 paperback. ISBN 0-679-73893-2  
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -   

    "America is becoming a land of private greed and public squalor.   
    This book is an indispensable road map through the wreckage. The   
    facts it reveals will startle you. They may depress you. But   
    ideally they'll fire you up to help rebuild this nation."   

                        -Robert B. Reich, author of The Work of Nations