The US, UN & Iraq III

Hmm -- Either you're a part of American history or not. Can't pick and choose.

Kara wrote:

quote: "The high duty of the Security Council, assigned it by the charter, was the maintenance of international peace and security." It's up to the Security Council and the International Community to find a way to make the UN work towards "international peace and security." If the UN fails, we all fail, the world fails.

Sounds grand doesn't it? Well, below is the reality of it-----------

<The UN's founders constructed a Gothic edifice of multiple levels, with grand porticos, ponderous buttresses, and lofty spires -- and with convincing façades and scary gargoyles to keep away evil spirits>

Gosh how I love the cynical honesty---how appropriate.

perception, Thank you for posting the link on the UN viability. From my reading of it, the UN is 'legally' dead. c.i.

Yes, tartarin, I can pick and choose.

C.I.

Thank Tartarin and I confess I did not read it right away but that is some of the finest writing (unbiased) I've seen in a long time.

It by itself is reason enough to subscribe to Foreign Affairs Mag.

BTW, I still think the UN can work towards "humanitarian" goals. c.i.

C.I.

Agreed---but everyone seems to imagine a much loftier goal----it can't happen.

Joe Nation, actually, we did provide samples of polio and a few other viruses. It was a public health issue, and was UN Approved. It may have been unwise, but it was well-intentioned and above-board. No evidence supports any claim that the US encouraged any form of Iraqi weapon development. And how else than "Some Intelligence" would you describe the information the US provided Iraq? One thing the US discovered, belatedly and at great inconvenience and with considerable embarrassment, was that the Iraq of Saddam Hussein was not to be trusted. If any error of official judgement in the matter exceeds the original assumption that Iraq would behave honorably I can't imagine what that surpassing error might have been. While "Wrong" is "Wrong", wrongs are quantifiable. I submit that an isolated instance of "Wrong" may be, however regretable, a matter of mistake. An ongoing participation in a wrong, such as circumventing and manipulating UN Sanctions over more than a decade, thereby providing material aid to a proscribed State, is not indicative of a simple blunder. There remain many unanswered questions with the depaeture of Saddam. I honestly expect the US will encounter significantly less embarrassment and inconvenience than will some others. Success often engenders pride and begets arrogance. The World is justified in the perception of the US as a Juggernaught; that plainly and simply is the undeniable case. The US, I suspect, will for some considerable time to come be perceived by many to be an arrogant Juggernaught. Stabilization of supportable oil price and lessening of both Middle Eastern and Korean tensions, as intended by The Current Administration, would beneficially impact the global economy ... a development which would do nothing to inconvenience The Current Administration or the US. The prospect of success in the endeavor deeply troubles The Opposition, both global and domestic.
Will Iraq achieve a representative, secular government? I don't know, and have often voiced that concern, seeing it particularly notable that Iran has a major interest in Iraq's eventual politico-diplomatic stance. Will Iraqi non-compliance with mandated disarmament and other 1991 Ceasefire obligations be demonstrated conclusively? I am confident that will prove the case. Will The Roadmap lead to a more stable, democratic, prosperous region? I suspect it will, if difficulties in Iraq don't distract and preoccupy the US. I'm not at all comfortable with the way things are going at home or abroad ... "Losing" is bad enough, but in this case. "Winning" entails troubling implications itself.

Tartarin wrote:

<Hmm -- Either you're a part of American history or not. Can't pick and choose.>

Seems to me you're doing a grand job of picking and choosing.

You choose the part you agree with and ignore the rest. No offense meant ---- just stating a fact.

Don't you mean opinion?

perc, the US had a say in the UN Charter, and a vote in its adoption. So did lots of different nations. The blame for failure is spread some. Nobody can claim it all. Some nations have done less than others to enable the success of the institution. I have to wonder why there is no outrage over the absurdity of a Security Council seat for Syria, a Disarmamment Commitee seat for Iraq, and a Libyan seat in Human Rights? The concept of The UN is admirable. The implementation is flawed, however.. Of course, that's pretty much the way of the works of humankind.

I think those countries are poor candidates for those poitions, others think the countries that hold veto power are equally unworthy of that position.

The UN already gave enormous power to the US and it's allies, it's a pity that any issue of contention between the US and the UN results calls for undermining the UN.

Timber

I guess you don't see it at all the way I do---For example if you compare the wording of the US constitution with the UN Charter you will get my drift----the Constitution has real substance---the UN Charter has lofty ideals but no substance.

Another quick note - Blatham, no, those 2 were not Canadians either; hockey stick exports picked up subsequently, though C$ didn't follow. No matter - any country who produced player #99 is a great country, period!

Timber is right, btw: we never supplied arms to Iraq during 1980-1988; assorted Latin Americans and Middle Easterners (mostly Israel-based, with strong Turkish trans-shipment support) may have done so, as per declassified cable traffic:
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Document 34: Department of State Cable from Kenneth W. Dam to United States Embassy in Jordan. "Rumsfeld Mission: Meeting with King Hussein in London," December 23, 1983.

Ambassador-at-large and presidential emissary Donald Rumsfeld discusses prospects for improving U.S.-Iraqi relations with King Hussein of Jordan. Rumsfeld reports on his talks with Saddam Hussein and Tariq Aziz and says they had "more areas of agreement than disagreement." He also reviews the status of a proposed pipeline to Aqaba for Iraq's oil.

The U.S. promoted the Aqaba pipeline project strenuously for several years during the early to mid 1980s. It would have carried oil from northern Iraq to the Gulf of Aqaba in Jordan, alleviating the disruptive effect on Iraq's oil output that resulted from Iran's attacks on oil transshipment facilities in the Persian Gulf and from Syria's closing of a pipeline that had transported Iraqi oil. The proposed project reflected the U.S.'s extreme nervousness about threats to the world oil supply resulting from the Iran-Iraq war.

The U.S. involved several U.S.-based multinational corporations in planning the project. International financier Bruce Rappaport, a friend of CIA director William Casey, was also a central figure in the proposed deal. (The final report of the independent counsel for the Iran-Contra "arms for hostages" scandal cites reports indicating that Rappaport's bank in Geneva was the recipient of a mysterious $10 million payment from the Sultan of Brunei to fund the Nicaraguan contras that subsequently disappeared. Rappaport denied this; the final report says that the issue remained unresolved. He was invited to testify in 1999 at a House Banking committee hearing on corruption in Russian financial transactions, but declined.) The project was complicated by demands that the U.S. arrange for ironclad security guarantees from the Israelis, since the pipeline would have been vulnerable to their attack. The Israelis, for their part, demanded guarantees that pipeline facilities would not cause environmental damage.

All involved had their reasons for at least hypothetical interest in the project. For Iraq, it would have been a manifestation of improved U.S.-Iraq relations - they wanted as much U.S. financial and other involvement in the proposed deal as possible. For the U.S., it would have provided an alternative, theoretically secure outlet for oil and created a nexus for entangling Iraqi interests with those of Jordan and Israel, consistent with U.S. plans to create a wider consortium of Arab countries that would cooperate with the U.S. and would be willing to resolve the Palestine-Israel dispute on U.S. terms. Israel would have benefited from new oil facilities in its vicinity, and won points with the Reagan administration. Also, according to internal documents from a friend of Reagan administration Attorney General Edmund Meese, brought in as an intermediary because of his Israeli ties, payoffs would have been skimmed from complex financial guarantee arrangements for the Israeli government and Labor Party.

Attempts to agree on arrangements that would satisfy all parties dragged on, until the several private companies that had been brought in to plan the project backed out, questioning the motives of all involved. Iraq, however, revived the concept in 2000, presumably for its own strategic interests.

Source: Court exhibit
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/index.htm
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P.S. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose <G>

The UN was an outgrowth of WWII, and veto power was vested in the major victorious allies, a fictional group to begin with, as defence against the possibility "Lesser Nations" might negatively impact The Club. The Club as constituted did not include Mao's China, but rather the Pro Western China of Chang Kai Shek, inclided more or less as a politeness anyway. The Soviet Union actively and agressively engaged the other erstwhile Allies. France, as was China, was invited along as a courtesy, and bloodied, tired, and bankrupt Great Britain and the incontestably rich and powerful US were more or less "Joined at the hip". The arrangement was doomed from the start.

Beg pardon, Timber - Chiang's China was included by calculation to keep Stalin in check. Remember the Russians might well have caved were it not for massive supplies shipped by Roosevelt to Vladivostok.

In any event - none of this matters much since the UN has never been more than a talk shop. Anyone familiar with "UN actions" know they were fought by individual countries; "UN troops", esp. in their African deployments, were a comedy central act, selling their arms to the highest bidder and subsequently getting "freed" in prearranged deals; as to "UN peacekeepers" - useless where there's no peace to keep (as there wasn't in Srebrenica) and unneeded where there's peace already, like Cyprus.

A universal talk shop is needed, so I support the continued existence of the UN on this basis. But we should have no illusions as to its effectiveness in any matter in which force of arms can make a difference.

To be exact, the subscription to the Principles of the Atlantic Charter, January 1, 1942 - called officially "DECLARATION BY UNITED NATIONS" - can be considered as the actual beginning for the UN (at least of the name).

The San Francisco Conference (April-May 1945) started the "business".
The Trumann Presidential Museum and Library shows some most interesting papers online.

I share this opinion, half-hearted, since I don't know of anything better than the present UN.
[Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking. - Clement Atlee]

Hello, Walter - glad to see you as always and particularly since posted earlier today my understanding of some German laws, stating however that must defer to your interpretation of same.

If possible, could you look up the statement, and comment? Thanks!

After a quick look over your posts of the last days ... you refer exactly to what, HofT? ("Immer zu Diensten", btw :wink: )