-Caveat Lector- http://yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1149&mode=thread&order=0
''Is the United Nations irrelevant?'' Printed on Wednesday, March 12, 2003 @ 08:09:31 EST ( ) By Firas Al-Atraqchi YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada) (YellowTimes.org) . In recent weeks, the United Nations has come under assault from various U.S. Senators as well as members of the U.S. State Department concerning the issue of Iraq and disarmament. The U.N. has been accused of being a "debating society" by U.S. President George Bush, and has been ostracized as being irrelevant unless it specifically carries out one function, and one function alone: authorize an invasion of Iraq. Many Americans who do not know of the U.N.'s great achievements in the past 58 years, nor of specific U.S. actions to undermine the Security Council in this period, tout the official U.S. government hook, line and sinker. On mainstream North American media, the U.N. is scolded for allowing members diplomatically to defy U.S. actions and edicts. The uninformed viewer will immediately take the position that the U.N. acts against the interests of the U.S. and is a threat to national security. However, for many people around the world, most notably the impoverished third world and developing countries, the U.N. is a source of hope and stability. By no means is the U.N. a perfect system, and this author will be first in line demanding reform within U.N. chambers. However, it is the most global, most influential, and most binding international organization ever established in mankind's modern history. To compare it to the League of Nations, which was governed primarily by colonial powers and completely disregarded lesser African and Asian countries, is to celebrate historical ignorance. Since its establishment in the wake of the horrors of World War II, the U.N. has negotiated peaceful resolutions to some 172 conflicts and deployed more than 42 peacekeeping missions around the world. Free and fair elections have been sponsored, monitored, and endorsed in more than 45 countries with resounding success in bringing democracy to Cambodia, Namibia, El Salvador, Eritrea, Mozambique, Nicaragua and South Africa. In non-political terms, UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Fund) has spent more than $800 million a year, primarily on immunization, health care, nutrition and basic education in 138 countries. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) currently operates in 170 member states and helps design and implement more than 5000 projects for agriculture, industry, education, and the environment. Listing all of the U.N.'s achievements would be too cumbersome; however, the U.N. currently has projects that promote human rights, combat illegal people smuggling, maintain arms control, promote nuclear non-proliferation, provide education on ways to protect the environment, provide humanitarian aid, eradicate smallpox and other diseases, promote women's rights, protect the ozone and prevent over-fishing, protect valuable earth resources, and on and on. This is an "irrelevant" organization? Indeed, the U.N. has thrived despite U.S. efforts and not because of them. While the U.S. press reminds France who liberated it in World War II and warns France not to use the veto, it is the U.S. who has used the veto more than any other nation in the past 20 years. In fact, according to research conducted by the BBC, the Soviet Union and Russia have used the vote 120 times, the U.S. 76, the U.K. 32, France 18, and China 5 times. Thirty-five of the U.S. vetoes have explicitly focused on Israeli policies in the Middle East. According to the BBC, the latest U.S. veto "in December 2002, was a draft resolution criticizing the killing by Israeli forces of several United Nations employees and the destruction of the World Food Program warehouse in the West Bank." The U.S. vetoed this resolution, thereby implying that the murder of U.N. personnel and destruction of U.N. infrastructure was permitted. (The draft resolution concerned itself with the murder of one Ian Hook, a British citizen working for the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA). A U.N. investigation refuted Israeli claims that shots were fired from the UNRWA compound which necessitated fire on the compound. Hook was shot three times by Israeli gunfire.) The current U.S. administration says Iraqi defiance of 17 U.N. resolutions within the past 12 years makes Iraq a pariah, an outlaw state that must be dealt with forcibly. However, by the same token, the U.S. administration does not reveal that Israel is currently in violation of 32 U.N. resolutions since 1968. According to U.N. transcripts, Turkey has violated 24 resolutions, and Morocco has violated 17 resolutions concerning the Western Sahara conflict and the plight of people of Western Sahara. There is no threat of invading the aforementioned countries. Indeed, the issue of Iraq is not simply about U.N. resolutions. However, the fallacy of violations is repeated again and again by U.S. administration officials, U.S. Senators, and pundits who support a war on Iraq. Now, on to U.N. resolution 1441. The U.S. administration has been engaged in reminding everyone that 1441 received unanimous support in the Security Council; even Syria signed on. "How, then, could those same members of the Security Council be objecting to the use of 1441 to go after Saddam?" They are partially objecting because they were lied to. No sooner had the 1441 passed when U.S. officials stated that 1441 was all they needed as authorization for war. Syrian political analyst Hamzan Abou Deif believes Syria was duped into signing on to 1441. He explains that Syria was assured that supporting 1441 would not only put pressure on Iraq and Saddam to reform and cooperate with U.N. inspectors, but also would stave off military confrontation. Other members of the U.N. Security Council seem to share the above notion: that 1441 was not to be used as a pretext for war. Nevertheless, the public has been continuously asked to refer to 1441 for an existing authorization for an Iraq war. [Firas Al-Atraqchi, B.Sc (Physics), M.A. (Journalism and Communications), is a Canadian journalist with eleven years of experience covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and the telecom industry.] Firas Al-Atraqchi encourages your comments: [EMAIL PROTECTED] YellowTimes.org is an international news and opinion publication. 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