-Caveat Lector- http://www.ctrl.org/">
-Cui Bono?-
Here's to a world in denial
http://www.globeandmail.com/gam/Commentary/2407/COSALUT.html
RICK SALUTIN
Friday, April 7, 2000
The debate on whether Canada should join the new
U.S. National Missile Defence weapons system is off
to a dumb-ass start. Canadian General George H.
MacDonald of NORAD echoed the American
justification about protection against "rogue nations"
with missiles. Canadian Alliance MP Art Hanger echoed
him, saying "the proposed NMD system . . . would
protect North America from attacks by rogue states."
The rogue states he names are North Korea, Iran and
Iraq. I think he missed one: the United States. I don't
say this to be provocative or controversial. I hate that
provocative-controversial stuff. I hate rant journalism.
Just listen to the evidence.
Last year, the United States used NATO rather than
the United Nations to back its war against Yugoslavia,
though the UN Charter says only the UN can take
international military action. The United States also
refuses to pay its huge debt to the UN. It failed to ratify
the new International Criminal Court alongside states
such as Libya, Iraq, China and Israel. Same thing with
the anti-land-mines convention. It didn't ratify the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It did sign the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty, but never implemented its
provisions. The NMD itself is a kind of rogue action
since, as even the United States admits, recent
disarmament treaties will have to be suspended or
cancelled if it goes ahead. It's also failed to ratify a
host of other conventions, such as the Law of the Sea
and women's rights. Along with Somalia, it hasn't
signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child
because it doesn't like the provision keeping kids out of
the military. Sometimes, pundits say, Oh this is just the
United States following its isolationist traditions. But it
isn't. Isolationists don't send planes out to bomb all over
the world.
As in 1986, when the United States bombed Libya over
an unproved claim that Libyans had been responsible
for a bomb set in a Berlin nightclub that killed a U.S.
soldier. Or last year's bombing of a Sudanese factory
over an unproved claim that it made explosives used
against U.S. embassies. You can exempt the bombing
of Iraq in the Persian Gulf war if you want, since it had
a UN cover; but not subsequent attacks, for which the
United States says it no longer needs UN resolutions.
The United States has backed coups in Iran,
Guatemala, Chile and Brazil, among others. It was
behind assassinations or attempts against leaders of
China, the Dominican Republic, the Congo and Fidel
Castro -- "five or six" of which the head of the CIA
acknowledged, though far more are known. All this
can be documented, mostly from government sources.
It defied World Court rulings on its war against
Nicaragua and has invaded the Dominican Republic,
Grenada, Panama and Haiti. The United States has also
used chemical weapons such as Agent Orange in
Vietnam and radioactive shell casings in the gulf war.
For that matter, it tested nuclear weapon fallout on its
own military and civilians, without telling them, in the
1950s. It is the only country to ever use nuclear
weapons in war.
Not only does it act like a rogue state; it has the psyche
to back it up. I'm thinking of the hysteria over the Cuban
child, Elian Rodriguez. The United States assumes that,
