From: jakhan@IASTATE.EDU (Javed Ahmed Khan)
Subject: Re: Mr. Ghaly is the right man in the right place.
Reply-To: jakhan@IASTATE.EDU (Javed Ahmed Khan)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 15:49:46 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.233101.7533@midway.uchicago.edu>, bitn@quads.uchicago.edu
(nathan elery bitner) writes:
> >> In article <1993Jan5.143225@IASTATE.EDU> jakhan@IASTATE.EDU (Javed Ahmed
Khan)
> >writes:
> >
> >
> >What is the sense in keeping the UN alive just to humour the US, the Brits,
> >France etc.? The UN has been used to maintain the superiority of the west in
> >many respects. The US paying such a huge chunk of the UN budget is used to
> >manipulate the UN agenda to its wishes making a mockery of the claim of the
> >"independence and fair paly" aspect of its charter.
> >
> >See what happened in the Gulf War. Even now when the "Allied" forces gave an
> >ultimatum to Iraq to remove the missiles, they say implementing the UN
> >resolutions is paramount and are willing to risk the lives of their "sons
and
> >daughters" to destroy Saddam. But they also say that if the UN security
council
> >does not pass a resolution to bomb Iraq (because of a veto by one of 
> >the permanent members like China or Russia) they would go ahead in any case.
> >The UN may be dammed as far as they are concerned in that case.
> >
> >
> >
> 	I was not defending the clearly western bias of the United Nations;
> I was merely pointing out the impracticality of your proposals.  Money
> makes the world go 'round.  The U.S. obviously has a disproportionate
> amount of influence with regards to the spirit of the UN Charter.  Without
> an effective Security Council (and to be effective, it must have the 
> support of the United States), you might as well call the UN the Useless
> Nations.  Not that it's any great source of power now.  The UN Charter is
> out of date.  Ghali is using it to defend the UN's weak-kneed policies
towards
> BiH.  So what you have to decide is whether you want the UN to have teeth
> or not.  I believe the UN should throw out its charter and give itself far
> more power to intervene in situations such as BiH and to be able to take
> substantial preventative measures as well where situations require them.
> I strongly support the policies taken towards Iraq by the UN, whether or not
> they were influenced by U.S. pressure (which of course they were).  It 
> showed that the UN *will* support the use of force where its required.  And
> if the UN wasn't going to, then I think the U.S. would have been right to
> say "screw you, we're going to do something anyway."  All the UN has been
> with regards to Bosnia-Hercegovina is a bunch of pansies sitting on high
> condemning atrocities.  That's all they usually ever do.  So I say, as an
> American:  "UN:  Screw you.  If you are going to continue your weak-kneed
> policies towards BiH, then we will work around you.  What are you going to
> do about it?  We pay you enough money to keep you afloat.  You continue
> to ignore one of the worst crimes of the twentieth century.  Desperate times
> call for desperate measures, and we are prepared to take them if you are not.
> Let them call us imperialist, interventionist, capitalist pigs.  I don't
care;
> this must stop.  Let them say that this undermines the credibility of the
> UN.  If you ask me, they never had any anyway.  Meanwhile, you can go draft
> your zillionth resolution condemning the Israelis or something.  Keep
yourself
> occupied -- something might actually get done."
> 	The U.S. should have done it while the war was still in Croatia.
> 	So decide -- Useless Nations or "teeth" in the form of a mostly
> western military.  Being an American and obviously biased, I'll take the
> latter.  The time for condemnations ended long ago.
> 
> *-Nathan-*
> 
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> |                         INTER ARMA SILENT LEGES                      |
> | "Worship Ditka NOW."                email:  bitn@midway.uchicago.edu |
> |______________________________________________________________________| 




Its funny. I thought you said that the UN owed its existence to the US and the
west and seeing the kind of action the UN has taken in many trouble spots, I
would think the US, Britain, France made up the UN. The UN is infact a
coalition
of the US, Britain and France ( and now a subservient Russia). But you then
start to distinguish the UN from the will of the US and the west. The fact that
all "enforcement of UN resolutions" are reserved for countries which threaten
the economic and strategic interests of the west is not acknowledged. Thus we
see the ineffectiveness of the UN when it comes to enforcing the resolutions in
the case of Israel or South Africa, the embarrased knee-jerk reaction in trying
to maintain "humanitarian" aid to Bosnia and the hand wringing pleas to the
Serbs to stop the massacre in Bosnia.

Now tell me, how is it possible to get the UN to pass a resolution against a
country like Iraq in 24 hours, but cannot get to agree even on a draft to
condemn countries like Israel, if not for the active manipulation and dictation
of resolutions by the west, led by the US. If the remaining members of
the Security council apart from the permanent members were to call for military
action against a country like Israel to evict it from the occupied territories 
do you think the US would go along with it ? There would be an immediate veto.



--Javed.
 
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