From: harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU (Harel Barzilai)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.desert-storm,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Appendix (1) to "final reply chomsky/gulf
Date: 17 Aug 92 03:42:35 GMT
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB


    "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.

   ===============================================================
   T h e   U . S .   a n d   " i n t e r n a t i o n a l   l a w "
   ===============================================================

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.

##################################################################

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