Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Bush

  • Tutu Tells Blair: Apologize for ‘Immoral’ War

    Archbishop Desmond Tutu will challenge Tony Blair and George Bush today to apologize for their pursuit of a counter-productive and “immoral” war in Iraq.
    In a scathing analysis of the background to the invasion, he will ridicule the “dangerously flawed” intelligence that Britain and the US used to justify a military action which has made the world a “great deal less safe”.

    The intervention of the Nobel peace prize winner in the controversy over Iraq follows a series of deadly terrorist attacks in the country over the past week, including an armed raid on a police station on Saturday in which 22 people died.

    Delivering the Longford Lecture, sponsored by The Independent, the emeritus Archbishop of Cape Town will argue that the turmoil after the war proved it is an illusion to believe that “force and brutality” leads to greater security.

    ” How wonderful if politicians could bring themselves to admit they are only fallible human creatures and not God and thus by definition can make mistakes. Unfortunately, they seem to think that such an admission is a sign of weakness. Weak and insecure people hardly ever say ‘sorry’.

    ” It is large-hearted and courageous people who are not diminished by saying: ‘I made a mistake’. President Bush and Prime Minister Blair would recover considerable credibility and respect if they were able to say: ‘Yes, we made a mistake’.”

    The archbishop will link Mr Bush’s support, when he was Governor of Texas, for capital punishment with a new philosophy behind the invasion of Iraq. He will say: “It may not be fanciful to see a connection between this and the belligerent militarist policies that have produced a novel and dangerous principle, that of pre-emption on the basis of intelligence reports that in one particular instance have been shown can be dangerously flawed and yet were the basis for the United States going to war, dragging a Britain that declared that intelligence reports showed Iraq to have the capacity to launch its weapons of mass destruction in a matter of minutes.

    ” An immoral war was thus waged and the world is a great deal less safe place than before. There are many more who resent the powerful who can throw their weight about so callously and with so much impunity.”

    The archbishop, who was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984, will suggest that the two leaders have operated a policy of “might is right – and to hell with the rule of international law”.

    Sir Menzies Campbell, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said yesterday: “These comments from such a widely respected figure of independent mind emphasizes the extent to which Britain’s reputation and possibly influence have been affected by the military action against Iraq.

    ” I doubt if President Bush or Mr Blair are going to apologize, but they should certainly reflect seriously upon the alienation of figures such as Desmond Tutu.”

    A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “The Government’s position on Iraq has been made clear. We will wait to see what the archbishop says and respond in due course.”
    In his lecture the archbishop will draw on his experience in South Africa after the downfall of apartheid to argue that “retributive justice” ignores victims’ needs and can be “cold and impersonal”.

    He will instead champion the concept of “restorative justice” – in which offenders and victims are brought together – and point to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which he headed, as an illustration of the idea being put into practice.
    Now 72, the archbishop is spending several weeks in Britain in his role as visiting professor in post-conflict studies at King’s College, London.

    He will also take a swipe in his speech at the steady increase in the British prison population in recent years, arguing that harsher sentencing does not “stem the tide of recidivism”. He will warn that sending first-time offenders to prison increases the prospect of them becoming repeat offenders, making harsh sentences “quite costly”.

    This article was originally published by the lndependent/UK on February 16, 2004.

  • Livingstone says Bush is ‘Greatest threat to life on planet’

    Originally Published in independent.co.uk

    Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, launched a stinging attack on President George Bush last night, denouncing him as the “greatest threat to life on this planet that we’ve most probably ever seen”.

    His provocatively timed comments, on the eve of Mr Bush’s arrival in London tonight, threaten to create severe embarrassment for the Prime Minister. They also come with talks under way on whether to re-admit Mr Livingstone to the Labour Party before his five-year exile ends.

    Although he made his many differences with the Government on a range of issues clear, he reserved his strongest comments for the American President in an interview with The Ecologist magazine.

    The President’s three-night trip, which will culminate on Friday with a visit to the Prime Minister’s Sedgefield constituency, has sparked a flood of protests from those opposed to his foreign policy. But Mr Livingstone’s outburst makes him one of the most high-profile and explicit of his critics.

    Mr Livingstone recalled a visit at Easter to California, where he was denounced for an attack he had made on what he called “the most corrupt and racist American administration in over 80 years”. He said: “Some US journalist came up to me and said: ‘How can you say this about President Bush?’ Well, I think what I said then was quite mild. I actually think that Bush is the greatest threat to life on this planet that we’ve most probably ever seen. The policies he is initiating will doom us to extinction.”

    Mr Livingstone, who is holding a “peace party” for anti-war groups in City Hall tomorrow, added: “I don’t formally recognise George Bush because he was not officially elected. So we are organising an alternative reception for everybody who is not George Bush.”

    He said he supported stronger links between European Union countries only because he wanted to see a powerful bloc emerge to rival the United States. “The American agenda is sweeping everything before it, and although it’s not perfect, the EU is better on environmental issues. It’s a less rapacious form of capitalism.”

    The Mayor said he had viewed Labour’s 1997 election manifesto as a “load of old guff they’d come out with because they didn’t want to upset the Daily Mail” that would rapidly be ditched. “I was amazed when it transpired that Blair had been serious,” he said.

    Accusing Mr Blair of suffering from a “background problem”, he said: “There is nothing in his past that was radicalising. He wasn’t interested in all the great student activities, the radical campaigns.

    “He did not get involved in politics until the 1970s, when the high point was passed. So you have someone of the summer of ’68 generation who actually wasn’t part of it.”

    On GM foods, he said: “If the Government ignores public opinion, then civil disobedience on this issue is legitimate, as long as it’s not violent.

    “But the most important thing that affects a government is not peaceful protest, but fear of the ballot box.

    The Mayor’s comments will infuriate Downing Street at a time when No 10 is examining ways of bringing Mr Livingstone, who was expelled from the Labour Party for standing as an independent in the London mayoral elections of 2000, back into the fold.

    AS THE PRESIDENT PREPARES TO VISIT SEDGEFIELD, TONY BLAIR’S CONSTITUENCY, WILL HE BE WELCOME?

    Chris Lloyd, political editor of The Northern Echo: “The paper is Bush neutral and he has a right to visit but equally, the people here have a right to demonstrate. I hope he gets to see all, or at least some of those protests and I hope Mr Blair will explain what they are about because that’s what friends are for. Despite Mr Bush’s unpopularity, there is a frisson of excitement because nothing of this magnitude has ever happened there.”

    Lucy Hovvels, vice-chairwoman of Sedgefield constituency and Labour councillor in Trimdon: “I’ve had local people asking where they can get Union Jacks and American flags because they think it’s an exciting and historic visit. I really believe Bush will get a warm welcome in Trimdon and the mood is one of excitement. We have the two most important people in the world coming to us – no one would otherwise know where Trimdon is.”

    Richard Wanless, co-ordinator of the ‘Sedgefield Against War’ protest: “The visit is a massive security risk and for those living in the area, it jeopardises our safety. No matter where he goes, there will be protests from London to the North-east to make sure he knows he is not welcome. To me, he is a war criminal that has illegal occupation of Iraq. To add to the insult, there are families here who lost their children to the war.”

    The Rev Martin King, rector of Sedgefield: “A lot of people here are very angry with the way the US administration is putting itself above the law. One person in my congregation said if President Bush wanted to look around the church, he would be welcome because it is a place for sinners, but he hoped his henchmen would leave their ironware at the door. His policies are very unwelcome in the region – I have not heard anyone voicing support for him.”

    Martin Callanan, Conservative MEP for Sedgefield: “The visit is hugely beneficial for the area. Most of the security threat to the people in Sedgefield will be represented by left-wing demonstrators. And how would we feel if our Prime Minister, whatever his political party, was treated similarly in another part of the world? It was Blair’s decision to send our troops to Iraq, so those who are anti-war should not take it out on Bush.”

    Martin McTague, former chairman of the North-east Regional Federation of Small Businesses: “It will put Sedgefield on the map and benefit the image of the North-east. Our business community is often viewed as a backwater and this will redress some of the old stereotypes. Because this is Blair’s constituency, a security risk is always there. The fact that Bush will be with him increases that risk but it is a notional increase.”

  • The Krakow Initiative: Another Blow from Bush

    On May 31, 2003 in the royal castle of Wawel, Krakow, during a state visit to Poland, U.S. President George W. Bush, delivered another forceful blow. This latest onslaught is part of the hegemonic strategy of absolute domination that the Bush administration has assumed in its efforts to consolidate a unipolar vision of the world that the international community rejects with certain timidity but, with a few exceptions, has ended up accepting in real life.

    Significantly, little is known and even less has been commented on in relation to the so-called “Krakow initiative” or, more formally, the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), in principle aimed at halting the trafficking and increase in weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In formalizing his proposal, Bush’s explanation was as follows: “The greatest threat to peace is the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. And we must work together to stop proliferation …. When weapons of mass destruction or their components are in transit, we must have the means and authority to seize them.”

    Although he attempted to cloak his words in the rhetoric of legality, the U.S. president promoted and continues to promote a dependent mechanism used by Washington, outside the confines of the United Nations, to control international air space and maritime routes. Initially, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom responded to the call, emphasizing, according to an official statement from the White House released on September 4, 2003, “the need for proactive measures to combat the threat from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

    The goal, to be sure, appears worthy of approval. In practice, however, other nations — Brazil, China, Canada, Russia, South Korea, India, and Pakistan, for the time being, have expressed their concern that the United States seeks to use an instrument of such a scope to strengthen its supremacy in the production of cutting-edge nuclear, ballistic, biological, and chemical technology and to control global transportation routes.

    If the PSI is indeed concretized as conceived by Bush and his strategists, Washington will monopolize espionage, the interception of ships on the high seas and aircraft in international air space, and multilateral control devices, all under the pretext of the simple suspicion that WMD or their components could be in transit.

    The countries that openly oppose the U.S. proposal have pointed to the danger of a quite flexible interpretation of the legal basis for intercepting international transport, as understood by Washington. A first consequence would be the displacement of other producers of weapons and chemical, biological and nuclear products, in favor of the U.S. industrial complex.

    According to the interpretation offered by the Bush administration, almost all cutting-edge technology products can be used in the production of WMD and for the same reason, they can be subject to confiscation by the United States and its allies. This immediately and directly threatens compliance with purchase-sale contracts worldwide and with free international trade, which would become a virtual monopoly of large U.S. corporations and, to a lesser extent, Washington’s European and Asian partners.

    The threat of bioterrorism, for example, which has still not thus far been concretized in specific incidents, has allowed Washington to unilaterally impose much stricter measures of control over foodstuffs and agricultural products exported to the United States and its allied or nearby countries. This, in reality, is an instrument of pressure on exporter countries, which contradicts the norms of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

    In this sense, the law on bioterrorism that is expected to be approved next October is, from the point of view of the Latin American countries, a new and virtually impenetrable barrier to the development of free international trade in agricultural products. This measure, coupled with the U.S. government’s protectionist measures, will sooner than later, cause the collapse of the economies in the region.

    To be sure, no one can have doubts on the importance of strengthening measures to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and in this sense, Bush’s initiative is aimed in the right direction. However, the way in which its functioning has been structured moves away from such real and desirable objectives, to become an element of hegemonic domination.

    The principles that should prevail in the Proliferation Security Initiative should respect international law and the system of norms accepted within the framework of the United Nations. Otherwise, the blow to world legality will be devastating and perhaps definitive.

    *The author is President, Latin American Circle for International Studies (LACIS).

  • Resisting the Global Domination Project: An interview with Prof. Richard Falk

    For over three decades, Richard Falk has shared, with fellow Americans Noam Chomsky and Edward Said, a reputation of fearless intellectual and political commitment to the building of a just and humane world. He recently retired as Professor of International Law and Practice, at Princeton University and is currently a Visiting Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has been a prolific writer, speaker and activist of world affairs and the author or co-author of more than 20 books.

    The following are excerpts from a discussion that Falk had with Zia Mian and Smitu Kothari about the US war on Iraq, the role and future of the United Nations and the need to rethink democratic institutions and practices.

    Kothari/ Mian: Before the war, there were unprecedented protests in the U.S and around the world. It was evident that a significant proportion of world opinion was opposed to the US plans to attack Iraq. Additionally, if the second Resolution had come to the UN, the US would have faced a veto in the Security Council, and yet they went ahead with the war. What are your thoughts on the legality and illegality of the war, and what are its implications for both the present period of engagement and the post-war situation?

    Richard Falk: Before one gets to the issue of legality or morality there is the issue of a war by the US Government that violated fundamental rights of its own citizenry in a country that proclaims itself the world’s leading democracy. This war against Iraq is very questionable constitutionally, as well as dubious under international law. There was no urgency from the perspective of American national security that might have justified a defensive recourse to a non-UN war, which is further suspect because the war was initiated without a formal and proper authorization from Congress. So this war against Iraq is constitutionally unacceptable and anti-democratic even if account is taken only of the domestic legal framework in the United States.

    Aside from that, there was no basis for a UN mandate for this war, either on some principle of humanitarian emergency or urgency of the sort that arguably existed in Kosovo (1999) or in some of the sub-Saharan African countries that were sites for controversial claims of humanitarian intervention during the 1990’s. There was also no evidence of a defensive necessity in relation to Iraq that had provided some justification for the unilateral American recourse to war against Afghanistan in 2001. In the Afghanistan War there was at least a meaningful linkage to the September 11th attacks and the persistence of the al Qaeda threat. A defensive necessity existed, although recourse to war stretched the general understanding of the right of self-defense under the UN Charter and international law. In contrast, recourse to war against Iraq represents a flagrant departure from the fundamental norms of the UN Charter that require war to be waged in self-defense only in response to prior armed attack, or arguably in some exceptional circumstance of imminent necessity — that is, where there is a clearly demonstrable threat of major war or major attack, making it unreasonable to expect a country to wait to be attacked. International law is not a prison. It allows a measure of discretion beyond the literal language of its rules and standards that permit adaptation to the changing circumstances of world politics. From such a standpoint, as many people have argued in recent years, it is reasonable to bend the Charter rules to the extent of allowing some limited exceptions to the strict prohibition of the use of force that is core undertaking of the UN and its Charter, and is enshrined in contemporary international law. This analysis leads to the inevitable conclusion that in the context of Iraq recourse to force and war was impermissible: there was neither a justification under international law, nor was there a mandate from the United Nations Security Council (and if there had been such a mandate it would have provided dubious authority for war, being more accurately understood as an American appropriation of the Security Council for the pursuit of its geopolitical goals). Furthermore, there were no factual conditions pertaining to Iraq to support an argument for stretching the normal rules of international law because there were credible dangers of Iraqi aggression in the near future. If such reasoning is persuasive, then it seems to me inescapable that an objective observer would reach the conclusion that this Iraq War is a war of aggression, and as such, that is amounts to a Crime against Peace of the sort for which surviving German leaders were indicted, prosecuted, and punished at the Nuremberg trials conducted shortly after World War II.

    Kothari/ Mian: Is there a case or any effort to legally challenge the U.S.? Given the international relations of power and evolving geopolitics what kind of space exists for any intervention of that kind?

    Richard Falk: It is necessary to understand that the available global political space available for such a legal challenge was severely constrained by U.S. geopolitical influence throughout the entire Iraq crisis, dating back to the first Gulf War in 1991. It is instructive to consider the framing of the recent debate in the United Nations Security Council around the famous resolution 1441, incorporating a position that unconvincingly accepted 80% of the U.S. allegations against Iraq. It is important to realize that even France and Germany, credited with taking an anti-American position, were arguing for an avoidance of war within the essential framework insisted upon by the U.S., and the U.K. The UN debate took it as established that the punitive resolutions passed after the Gulf War more than a decade earlier needed to be implemented by force to the extent that Iraq resisted. The debate was thus limited to the narrow question of whether these demands should be implemented by reliance on inspection or by war, and even here the inspection option was conditioned on Iraq’s willingness to cooperate with unprecedented intrusions on its sovereignty in the ultra-sensitive area of national security. It is helpful to realize that France and Germany were only arguing that inspection was doing the job of implementing the 1991 resolutions, especially SC Res. 687.

    Nowhere did the proponents of the inspection path insist that Security Council resolutions calling for the immediate end to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza be implemented. Nowhere was the question raised as to whether the 1991 ceasefire conditions imposed on Iraq continued to be justified, or whether American threats against Iraq (open advocacy of “regime change”) warranted lifting UN sanctions and other restrictions on Iraqi sovereignty, or did not create a duty by the UN to protect Iraq against severe threats directed by the US at its political independence and territorial integrity as promised by Article 2 of the Charter. In fact, the U.S. made it rather clear that it hoped that it preferred for the resolutions not to be enforced. Washington sought a pretext for war against Iraq. The White House was reluctant for this reason to seek authorization from the UN, and was persuaded to seek a Security Council mandate so as to enhance the legitimacy of the war and to get more countries to share the burden.

    All along Washington viewed this inspection path at the UN as an alternate route leading to war, at most an annoying delay, but under no conditions providing grounds for abandoning the resolve to embark on war. The US could not exert full control over the Security Council, given Iraqi compliance with the inspection process, and so recourse to war was undertaken by the US in defiance of the UN. Even then the UN lacked the autonomy to condemn such an unacceptable recourse to war. It needs to be remembered that if Washington had been more patient the inspection path might itself have produced a UN authorization of war, either if the inspection uncovered weapons of mass destruction, or if the Iraqis resisted some of the more extravagant demands of the inspectors. Although opponents of the Iraq War can take satisfaction from the refusal of UNSC to acquiesce in the US war policy, there are still many reasons to take note of the weakness of the UN in upholding the genuine security needs of the peoples of the world, or to fulfill the Charter vision of saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”

    Kothari/ Mian: So what you are arguing is that the entire framework of debate in the UN was itself severely constrained?

    Richard Falk: Yes, the whole framework of debate was distorted and deformed from the beginning. The real question before the Security should have been, were there grounds for the use of force against Iraq under any circumstances. The argument that Iraq had not complied with these resolutions in 1991 expresses a concern about the extent of UN authority in this sort of setting. But it also raises the important question about whether the 1991 ceasefire arrangements did not involve the kind of punitive peace that had been so disastrously imposed on Germany after WWI. The Versailles treaty has to be seen as one of the colossal blunders of the 20th century contributing to virulent German nationalism, to the militarisation of Germany, to the rise of Nazism and political extremism, generating a series of developments that led to WWII, to upwards of 50 million deaths and to the use of atomic bombs against the Japanese civilian population. In my judgment, this punitive peace imposed on Iraq, was from Day One an illegitimate way of normalising the relationship between Iraq and the international community after the Gulf War. We also need to recall that the Gulf War was itself a legally, politically, and morally dubious war, which might have been averted by a greater reliance on diplomacy and sanctions to achieve the internationally acceptable goal of reversing Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait.

    From a more progressive perspective, and with an eye on global reform, it is crucial to realize the degree to which the United Nations framework has itself been substantially co-opted by geopolitical forces concentrated in Washington. Even this degree of co-optation, which is less than 100%, frustrated the US Government in this instance. The Iraq debate in the UNSC was about the remaining 20% of the global political space that has so far eluded becoming geopolitically subordinated to the goals of U.S. foreign policy and US grand strategy aiming at global domination. What made the U.S. radical right leadership so furious was its inability to twist enough arms to gain control over this last 20%, an inability that resulted because the US was proposing a course of action that so plainly defied the UN Charter, international law and the elemental sense of international prudence. If you take note of the debate in the United States, some of the most vocal and influential opponents of the war were academic realists, individuals who have over the years generally favored the use of force in American foreign policy. But in this instance, from a prudential national interest perspective, they opposed the war. Such realist opposition is confirmation of the extremism that is generating American global policy. The Bush administration has adopted a post- realist orientation toward geopolitics that is partly religiously motivated and justified, and seems intent on projecting American power globally no matter what the norms, the breadth and depth of opposition, and the risks involved. It is these elements that make American leadership so dangerous for itself, and in the short run, even more menacing for the rest of the world.

    Kothari/ Mian: Is this proclivity to violence in the Bush administration a response to its failure to secure control of the remaining 20% of the UN as it seeks to globally dominate the institutions and places where the U.S. writ did not run? In fact, Immanuel Wallerstein has argued recently, that this is a response to America’s relative decline and that this is actually a restoration project rather than an expansionist project.

    Richard Falk: These are important issues. With regard to the remaining 20% of independent global space, the present leadership in the White House seems likely to abandon the pursuit of that objective, at least within the framework of the UN. The Bush policymakers have been taught a lesson that more ideological members of the Bush team had warned about anyway. It is useful to remember that the U.S. was only persuaded some months back to seek authorization from the UN after some Republican stalwarts like Brent Scowcroft (former National Security Advisor), James Baker, and more quietly, the senior George Bush, insisted that the Bush administration needed this collective mandate from the UN, that without it the war lacked sufficient political backing. This challenged the White House. George W. Bush’s original impulse was to act the way they did in Afghanistan without bothering with the UN, claiming its own sovereign prerogatives to use force as it thought necessary. For the White House/Pentagon hard line their mistake was to heed the advice of the Republican old guard. Instead, the new Bush reactionaries are convinced that if you cannot control that last 20%, then it should be ignored, preferring unilateralism to inaction. The new statecraft in Washington is to go ahead with their global dominance project, acting outside the UN and international law, claiming support on the basis of so-called “coalitions of the willing,” which include weak and submissive participants, making the operation appear to be the work of “a coalition of the coerced.”

    As far as the Wallerstein argument is concerned, it offers instructive historical insights but I don’t find it convincing overall. It is not attentive to a set of global conditions that have never existed before. The United States is a global state that is not deterred by any countervailing power that exists within the state system, and is driven by a visionary geopolitics aspiring to global domination. To the extent that the United States is deterred, it is by non-state centers of resistance that have shown the will and capability to inflict severe harm. The scary credibility of this American global dominance project rests on this idea that when one no longer has to worry about deterrence, then the preeminent actor can achieve the total control over the entire system. Such a grand strategy animates this leadership. These goals were explicated long before the Bush administration came to Washington. It is important to read what Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and the other Bush ideologues were advocating during the 1990s when they were watching from the sidelines throughout the Clinton presidency. Theirs’ was a view that America shouldn’t misinterpret the end of the Cold War, that it was not the time to disarm or a moment to declare “peace dividends.” On the contrary, it was the time to seize the great opportunity provided by the Soviet collapse to establish a global security system presided over by the United States. Such ambitions could only be satisfied, however, if the US Government was willing to invest sufficiently in military capabilities, including taking full advantage of “the revolution in military affairs” that required doctrinal innovations and drastic changes in weapons procurements .

    Kothari/ Mian: With the UN effectively demobilized and the emerging spectre of the US exerting its political and economic hegemony in wider and deeper arenas globally, what are the possibilities and sources of potential resistance?

    Richard Falk: At the present, I do not see the sources of effective resistance to this American undertaking in the short run. What I do see, and that’s why I refer to global fascism, is sufficient resistance, including here in the U.S., that it will lead the American leadership to pursue by all means a consolidation of economic and military power and a willingness to repress wherever necessary. The outcome seems increasingly likely to be a global oppressive order with a significant domestic spillover, which is already manifest. Given an attorney general like John Ashcroft the domestic face of the American global design is revealed as a kind of proto-fascist mentality that is prepared to use extreme methods to reach its goals. Without being paranoid, this is the sort of mentality that is capable of fabricating a Reichstag fire as a pretext so as to achieve more and more control by the state over supposed islands of resistance. At present, the US Government manipulates terrorist alerts as a way of scaring the American people into a submission that is at once abject and incoherent. The combination of the September 11th shock effect and the constant official warnings that there will be a repetition of such attacks has so far disabled Americans from mounting an effective opposition.

    Kothari/ Mian: There is a lot of studied speculation on the American regime’s motivations in going to war, ranging from the need to expand its sphere of power, consolidating its military-industrial, economic and geopolitical interests globally to appropriating to itself the role of unilateral global policeman. What in your assessment are the real motivations of the present regime?

    Richard Falk: Of course, the true motivations for a controversial undertaking like the Iraq War are concealed by American elites. Far more than elsewhere, American leaders operate within a frame of reference that takes for granted American innocence — what some diplomatic historians have identified as America’s moral exceptionalism, the claim that American foreign policy embodies uplifting values, contrasting with other states that are driven by crass interests. Such a contrast is sometimes expressed by contending that the US is a Lockean nation in a Hobbesian world. In the important speech that Bush gave at West Point in June 2002, he went out of his way to say, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that America is not seeking either imperial goals or a new utopia. Bush tried to put American behavior within the framework of a moral undertaking that was a response to the evil forces responsible for the September 11th attacks. He argues that a wider, necessary and justified, response to September 11th was based on a recognition that the so-called rogue nations, re-christened “axis of evil” states, now possess the leverage by way of the global terrorist networks to be able to inflect severe harm on the U.S., thereby validating American reliance on preemptive war as a defensive measure. The Iraq War is the first test of this new American doctrine, which has so alarmed the peoples, and many of the governments, of the world.

    It is helpful to realize that the roots of this thinking antedate the present American leadership and the post-September 11 context. Well before the Bush administration came to Washington, the American policy making community had developed a broad consensus supportive of the idea of global domination, although avoiding such language in public discourse. This national goal goes to the Clinton years, and before that, to the end of the cold war. The global reach is phrased euphemistically, but such thinking was responsible for a series of provocative moves: the militarisation of space, the preoccupation with “rogue” states, the projection of American power everywhere in the world, the maintenance of the alliances and foreign military bases in the aftermath of the cold war with no plausible strategic threat. So in the background of the present policymaking leadership was this bipartisan, strong consensus that suggested that the end of the cold war provided the U.S. with this novel opportunity to dominate the world and, at the same time, to provide stable security for both the world economy and to make the world safe for the market state committed to a neo-liberal IMF worldview. This pre-Bush dominance project became more explicit and more militarized in the aftermath of September 11th. Earlier American leadership couldn’t acknowledge its commitment to such a grand strategy, but so long as it was proceeding under the banner of anti terrorism, everything was validated, however imprudent, immoral, and illegal. Anti-terrorism. provided a welcome blanket of geopolitical disguise.

    Kothari/ Mian: But weren’t other interests – oil, the control of markets, Israel, etc. — also manifest in America’s geopolitical designs?

    Richard Falk:Yes. In the background of the global domination project, was always the more specific preoccupation with the geopolitics of energy for its own sake and to implement the global domination project. To keep the oil flowing at an optimal price, the U.S. needed to control Central Asian and Persian Gulf oil and gas reserves, and supply routes and pipelines. The wars against both Afghanistan and Iraq were partly motivated by these energy objectives. Just as oil and gas are an integral, if undisclosed component of American geopolitics, so is the strategic influence of Israel. The Israelis offer the US a positive security model, especially how to operate in a hostile setting of popular resentment. Israel helps Washington fashion a response to such questions as “how does a government that is opposed by various political forces go about establishing its security without granting any political concessions towards its opposition?” And “how does a government impose its will in effect on resisting elements? Israel has also exerted its back channels influence to convince the U.S. that it is essential to eliminate Iraq as an independent regional actor. Tel-Aviv was worried about Iraq as a potential source of opposition to Israeli hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East. Israel provided guidance as to how to fight the kind of borderless war that has been waged against al Qaeda in recent months. As Marwan Bishara has suggested, we are witnessing the Israelization of American foreign policy. I would add that we are also experiencing the Palestinisation of resistance tactics. Political assassinations of Palestinian opponents in foreign countries has long been a practice of Mossad – the Israeli Secret Service — and the justification for projecting force against hostile regimes that are seen as giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States is also part of this logic. In response, the tactics of urban warfare, including suicide bombings, has emerged as the most effective aspect of Iraqi resistance. Such is the dynamics of learning with respect to the methodology of political violence for both the strong and the weak.

    Also, part of the motivational structure operative in the White House and Pentagon is the widely shared perception that the locus of conflict in the post cold war world has shifted from Europe to the Middle East. This is a crucial shift that has many policy implications. It helps to explain the significance attached to the goal of making Iraq into a safe base area for American and Israeli hegemonic aims. A pacified and subordinated Iraq will give these actors much more leverage over Saudi Arabia and the Gulf generally. It is a very important part of a policy based on controlling the world by controlling the Middle East. If the Middle East is the pivot of geopolitics at this point, then the further idea behind the Iraq policy was to deepen the alliance between the United States, as the dominant state, and Israel and Turkey as regional partners, junior but still beneficiaries. Now Turkey has temporarily, and partly, withdrawn from that arrangement, under pressure from its public that overwhelming opposed waging this war against a Muslim neighbor. Whether Turkey sustains this level of independence is uncertain at this point. All these considerations explain why the policymakers in Washington were willing to embark on such a risky and unpopular course of action as initiating “a war of choice” in defiance of the United Nations. For the American leadership the risks were worth it because they regard the stakes high, and the hoped for gains great.

    Kothari/ Mian: It is clear, however, that the strategic interests are different now. The US will also reconfigure its relationship with the UN. What are your thoughts on this?

    Richard Falk: The prospects in Iraq are increasingly likely to resemble a modified Afghanistan approach taken — modified because Washington is keenly aware that there exist major economic rewards for the administrators of post-war Iraq. The reconstruction of the country will be worth billions. Contracts are likely to be given to very influential American companies, such as Bechtel, Parsons, Halliburton, for example, that have close ties to Pentagon officials, as well as to leaders spread around the American governmental structure, and its infra-structure of closely linked think tanks. Richard Perle’s economic machinations have been recently disclosed, showing that despite his lack of an official post, his access to the policy elite is a valuable economic asset.

    The strategic objectives are very different in Iraq than they were in Afghanistan and the emphasis placed on retaining and asserting regional control will lead to a much stronger American presence even though it may yet be given a cosmetic UN façade. The American strategy is likely to be to use the UN to achieve a modicum of legitimacy. but to maintain the actualities of control. This control will shape the reconstruction of Iraq and the realization of regional strategic goals. The full extent of these goals is not yet clear. It seems that the more extreme elements of the Bush administration, certainly including Wolfowitz, Feith, and John Bolton, but also probably Cheney and Rumsfeld, have a post-Iraq plan to alter the political landscape of the region in a series of other countries including Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Its rather difficult to predict or anticipate how this plan will be actualized. It depends on a series of uncertainties, including the degree to which opposition to the American presence becomes formidable, and threatening. Despite these American imperial expectations, there are structural factors that may induce even the Bush-led government to make a major effort to reconcile its strategic objectives with the appearance of quasi-legitimacy. Such a reconciliation, if possible, would seem likely to mitigate the intensity of anti-imperial resistance around the world and in the United States. Others also have an interest in reconciliation.

    France and Germany will undoubtedly for historical and economic reasons be eager to reach a new accommodation with the U.S. It is quite likely that the UN will be selectively used to the extent its helpful for improving the atmospherics of the global setting without undermining the achievement of American strategic objectives. But in future occasions where the U.S. seeks the use of force, it is unlikely to repeat the mistake of accepting advice that it needs first to obtain the collective authorization of the international community. As long as this present leadership is in control of the US Government, the UN will be bypassed when it comes to war-peace issues.

    Kothari/ Mian: We are now rapidly approaching the 50th anniversary of the overthrow of the Prime Minister Mossadegh in June, 1953. What are your reflections about what the U.S. political process has learned about its legitimacy given what has happened in previous attempts to intervene and exercise what it considers its legitimate authority?

    Richard Falk: The learning curve about legitimacy is very modest, if not outright regressive. The American elite has always had a rather barren historical memory. American leaders abstract one or two very simplistic and self-serving lessons from the past, thinly disguised rationalizations for the use of force as necessary if America is to reach its goals. It is remarkable how much weight has been give to the fatuous reasoning of Bernard Lewis to the effect that the September 11th events occurred because the United States had projected an image of weakness and ineffectuality in the Arab world.

    Such ideas were dominant in any event with the current elite, but the scholarly mantle of Lewis supposedly gives such shopworn thinking additional weight. The Bush entourage are much less overtly economistic than the Clinton era elite, although they are equally enthusiastic free marketeers. But more than Clinton, they believe that you need military force to police the markets and to attain an advantageous world economic system. They further believe that this use of force by the US needs to be discretionary, without paying heed to international law or worrying about public opinion. It is in this sense that the new American configuration of power and objectives contains the danger of establishing global fascism, a loathsome political reality that has never before credibly aspired to global dominance.

    There seems to be very little awareness among the American leadership as to what went wrong in Iran after the CIA’s overthrow of Muhammed Mossadegh in 1953 or the Guatemala intervention the next year that led directly to a savage period of unrestrained ethnocide in Guatemala that lasted more than four decades. The only relevant lesson that arose from American interventionary behavior that this American elite acknowledges is the failure of Vietnam, which is generally blamed on the American peace movement or the liberal media or a lack of will. Vietnam is an active experience within the memories of the current leadership. But they see the present stakes and risks as far different and they believe that they have the support of the citizenry, being mobilized around the anti-terrorist campaign, manipulating, as needed, the fear of the public and stirring from time to time the toxic mixture of fear and anger. Such a public mood is being treated as a kind of wall that insulates this leadership from any obligation to respond to criticism and to show respect to grassroots opposition. Helpful to the government is an exceedingly compliant media—especially TV–that has been vigorously orchestrating society to support this dominance project. Influential arenas of public conjecture like the Wall Street Journal have also been enthusiastically cheerleading the ideas behind the global dominance project. The passivity of the Democratic Party is also part of this picture of fallen democracy. So far the centers of formal authority in the United States have faced very little meaningful opposition. They feel no need to acknowledge “the American street.”

    Kothari/ Mian: Don’t you think that there are still vast spaces that are not amenable to this kind of domination? What are the impulses or sources of hope, how does it really look in the short run or does it really look hopeless? How significant is the public resentment in Europe?

    Richard Falk: The most hopeful development of this character has been the emergence of a global movement of opposition and resistance initially to the Iraq war, but more basically to the reality and prospect of global domination by the U.S. This movement has an enormous potential to deepen and sustain itself as the first peace movement of truly global scope. Just as there is this first global fascist danger, there is also this exciting global democratic possibility that is focused on anti-war issues. If this movement could creatively fuse with the anti-globalization movement it could become a powerful and inspiring source of an alternate future. I would expect this movement to have its own political project of counter-domination. The very credibility and visionary hopes of the resistance — it will deepen and grow here in this country as well — will undoubtedly scare those on top, giving rise to more vicious methods of response. Such an interaction is almost inevitable. Also, depending on whether the US leadership is successful in reviving the global economy, there are large parts of the world that are increasingly likely to reject the clarion calls of imperial geopolitics, even if they are not yet inclined to engage the United States openly by forming defensive alliances and the like. These states inhabit, more or less, a geopolitical purgatory that is situated between acquiescence and co-option. At present, such governmental ambivalence is not a source of significant resistance. Even China at this stage is more or less playing this role, mainly acquiescing rather than trying to mount a meaningful resistance.

    Public resentment directed at American militarism and geopolitical hubris in western Europe is widespread and pervasive. But its not accompanied by a progressive political project that offers the prospect of an alternative elite structure. It is ironic that an arch conservative such as Chirac should be now playing the role of being the leader of mainstream diplomatic opposition to the U.S. The weakness of socialism and democratic socialist tendencies in Europe is a dismal part of this picture, limiting the opportunities for collaboration between the popular movement and sympathetic governments. The organized political parties in most of the parts of the world do not seem politically relevant for the purposes of resisting the onset of global fascism. It is the popular movement that gives by far the most hope, and the question posed by this reality is whether this popular movement can generate vehicles for political action that are more than symbolic. Can the peace and global democracy movement transform its symbolic role of mass opposition and resistance into substantive political results? I do not at the moment see how to achieve such global agency, but all progressive forces need to identify with this struggle and hope that enough creative capacity is present to generate those new institutions and vehicles for restructuring geopolitics-from-above. In some dramatic sense what is needed is a new surge of democratic empowerment, an emergent geopolitics-from-below.

    Kothari/ Mian: Does it not seem important then to significantly rethink and democratize the relationship between society, political parties, and the state? Additionally, the vast if dispersed unrest, assertion and mobilization – some of it manifest in the significant cultural and political gatherings at the World Social Forum – would also be the ground for the construction not just of dissenting imaginations but also of alternative political institutions and processes. Communities, even local governments in many places in the world have already begun to conceptualise and implement radically different people-centred economic, cultural and political systems. What are your thoughts on this?

    Richard Falk: Even before this current crisis became so manifest there was a sense that representative democracy through traditional political parties were not serving the well-being of the peoples in nominally democratic societies. There existed a widely felt need to reinvent democracy and to activate the creative roles of civil society to generate innovative ideas, to raise hopes, and to unlock the moral and political imagination of humanity.

    How does one goes about moving toward a new relationship between the state and society? Is it possible to restructure the state, to recapture it for a more populist agenda, remove it from control by the private sector and the military control? Can political action make the state into an instrument for more progressive social change? The global civil society movement was coming toward such an understanding in the late 1990’s. Despite its grassroots base of support, activists were not overall abandoning the state, but participating in a politics that aimed prudently to create a new equilibrium between capital and society. This equilibrium, never altogether satisfactory, had been lost in this early phase of globalization when the private sector successfully appropriated the mechanisms of the state for pursuing its goals of neo-liberal economics on the global stage. Now the populist and democratic agenda has been enlarged and altered to accord priority to anti-militarism, an adjustment to American geopolitical intoxication that is now being treated as the number one menace.

    This is a challenge to the extraordinary annual gatherings at Porto Allegre – which is itself a very encouraging invention of new policymaking arenas The challenge for these new political arenas is to incorporate anti-militarism with anti neo-liberalism and create the ideological climate for the emergence of a progressive politics that neither foregoes the sovereign state, nor limits its sense of institutional problem-solving to statist action. This new progressivism could emerge in forms that we cannot fully anticipate at the moment, but many of the elements are there already. This development is the main source of hope that we can have for a positive human future. We cannot count on just drifting within this present political landscape and think it possible to avoid catastrophe. How are we to arrest this drifting toward catastrophe without summoning the energies that have been evolving out of civil society and transnational social movements. I believe firmly that grassroots politics has the creative potential to produce an alternate vision that can mobilize people sufficiently.

    Kothari/ Mian: What happens to the entire process of deepening the international normative framework, the human rights system where some significant progress has been made? What are the threats and the possibilities of the survival and strengthening of the entire UN system and the progress in international law?

    Richard Falk: It is urgent that democratic forces do their best to safeguard the UN system. It is possible to believe that as the U.S. grows disillusioned with its capacity to control the UN, an institutional vacuum will emerge, and that it could be filled by civic forces leading the UN to flourish as never before. If the geopolitical managers treat the UN as unimportant, it may become more available for moderate states and their allies in global civil society. To the extent that the U.S abandons the UN, it will be a challenge for the rest of the world to strengthen its commitment both by adding resources and enlarging capacities, and psychologically endowing the organization and such kindred initiatives as the International Criminal Court with renewed vigor. The UN can revive our hopes for the future even if it is largely immobilized in relation to peace and security as it was throughout most of the cold war. It was really irrelevant to the way in which cold war violent conflicts were negotiated in Asia and elsewhere. This experience of the fifty years following World War II is probably an image of what is likely to happen at least during the next decade when the UN will almost certainly be marginalized with respect to the resolution of major geopolitical issues. At the same time the UN may enhance its contributions by providing an enlarged space for normative deepening in relation to human rights, environmental protection, and global justice issues. It is also possible that in reaction to this growing fear of global domination there will be developed a series of regional spaces for normative development of the sort that in the most optimistic sense seem to be occurring in Europe through the development of the European human rights framework, especially the European Court of Human Rights. I can envision other regional developments – Asian and African leaders have been talking more and more about constructing new institutions. Perhaps, a robust framework of resistance and creativity, the evolution of regional institutions, regional norms, regional political consciousness, will surprise us positively, both as resistance to the global project and as a positive sort of normative development.

  • Deploy First. Develop Later? Why Bush’s Plan to Deploy Flawed Missile Defense Meets Little Resistance

    On December 17, the Bush administration announced that the President has directed the Secretary of Defense to proceed with fielding an initial set of missile defense capabilities in 2004. According to military officials, these capabilities will likely include ground-based interceptors at Fort Greeley, Alaska, Aegis warship-based missiles and possibly ground-base interceptors at Vandenberg Air Force base. This announcement has provoked much criticism concerning the lack of reliability of system, the increased amount of funds necessary for this rushed deployment to occur and the destabilizing effect of the system on the international community. However, even given these significant problems, international and domestic opposition seem unlikely to be strong enough to prevent the planned deployment from occurring.

    Deploying an Unproven System

    In normal U.S. military procedure all systems are tested and demonstrated to be operationally effective before any new weapon is deployed. Yet this practice seems to have been side stepped, as pointed out by Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in Bush’s haste to deploy a missile defense system in less than two years. Levin was quoted by the New York Times as saying that Bush’s plan, “violates common sense by determining to deploy systems before they have been tested and shown to work.”

    Representative Tom Allen and Reprehensive Edward J. Markey joined Levin’s criticism of the system in a letter addressed to President Bush also signed by prominent Nobel Laureates. The letter referred to the deployment plan as being “little more than a political gesture,” given the technological hurdles that have yet to be overcome.

    There has, in fact, been little to no assurance that this initial missile defense will be effective. Bush’s announcement of deployment in 2004 follows a recent unsuccessful $80 million test on December 11, where the interceptor failed to separate from its booster rocket, missed its target by hundreds of miles and burned up in the atmosphere. According to defense analysts from the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), none of eight ground-based interceptor tests have adequately simulated reality.

    Increased Cost

    Bush’s recent deployment commitment is accompanied by a rise in cost of missile defense development, adding to existing concerns that missile defense is taking valuable resources away from more pressing federal programs. Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace predicts that the new missile defense deployment plan, “will cause missile defense budget to grow by over 10 percent to over $9 billion, making it the largest single weapon program in the budget. “

    Increased missile defense spending means fewer resources for public health and education, as well for other defense programs that actually address existing terrorist threats, particularly nonproliferation efforts through the Nunn-Lugar Comprehensive Threat Reduction programs.

    The Tempered Response

    Regardless of these many considerable flaws in Bush’s deployment plan, opposition in Congress remains weak. Most Democrats are offering only muted criticism of the missile defense programs and Democrat Joseph Lieberman broke with party leaders to give a full endorsement of Bush’s announcement of the 2004 deployment commitment.

    There was some international negative feedback concerning Bush’s missile defense announcement. Russia’s Foreign Minister announced that U.S. missile defense efforts have entered a “new destabilizing phase.” In general, however, the Minister’s comments were hardly severe.

    Though there has been significant opposition in Greenland to the proposed use of Thule Air Base for the missile defense system, officials from Denmark, which controls Greenland’s foreign affairs, and Great Britain appeared open to increased involvement in the future of missile defense deployment. France gave no response to the missile defense announcement, and the overall international reaction to Bush’s announcement was tempered, particularly among European allies.

    Why no fuss?

    The source of the political will for the Bush administration to deploy the missile defense system is clear. Such deployment will allow Bush to run for president in 2004 having fulfilled his campaign commitment to deploy a missile defense. It is also clear that large special interest contractors that benefit from missile defense and that annually contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to both Republican and Democratic federal campaigns are encouraged by the deployment. As reported in the Boston Herald on Wednesday, December 18th, Raytheon Co., a major missile defense contractor that has recently been suffering from a drop in stock value, warmly welcomed the President’s announcement to deploy in 2004.

    It is, however, startling that the announced deployment of an ineffectual, unreliable, exorbitantly expensive, and potentially destabilizing missile defense system has met such little resistance from U.S. and foreign policy makers. The lack of international response may stem from the system’s lack of promise in being effective in countering any potential opponent’s offensive systems. If the system is not effective, there is little reason for nations outside of the United States to voice strong opposition to the initiative and risk any political costs that would result from coming into conflict with the Bush administration.

    This is, however, the very reason that domestic leaders should be up in arms due to lack of independent oversight of the system, and the potential insecurity that could arise due to the inclusion of an ineffectual defense system within our defense strategy. But there seems to be a lack of commitment among U.S. policy makers to exert any significant control or oversight on the expanding missile defense. Though this lack of opposition is illogical from the stand point of sound spending and national security, from a political cost-benefit perspective it is clearly understandable. Opposition efforts could lead to enemies within the Bush administration, loss of campaign funding from contractors and possible loss in public support in exchange for little more than a clean conscience.

    This lack of political will and incentive indicates that in order to bring elected officials back in line, U.S. citizens and citizens around the world must step up their efforts to let their officials know that they will not tolerate irresponsible spending and premature weapons deployment. If a severe increased sense of public accountability is not soon created within the U.S. Congress regarding missile defense spending, there is little hope that the administration will be prevented from wasting an increased amount of federal funds on the deployment of an ineffectual missile defense system.

  • We Can Stop This War Before It Begins: Statement at the European Parliament

    We Can Stop This War Before It Begins: Statement at the European Parliament

    Thank you for inviting me to speak today. I have come here to urge you all, individually and collectively, to do everything in your power to oppose a US war against Iraq – a war that can have no good end. I believe that we have within our reach the ability to stop this war before it begins.

    If we succeed, we will save the lives of innocent Iraqis who have suffered enough, and also the lives of young American soldiers, who enlisted in the military with the primary purpose of obtaining the resources to go to college. We will also prevent the creation of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of new terrorists, whose activities will undoubtedly affect Europe as well as the United States.
    AMERICA DOES NOT SPEAK WITH ONE VOICE

    The Bush administration would have the world believe that America speaks with one voice on the issue of war against Iraq. John Negroponte, the US Ambassador to the UN, recently said, referring to the Joint Congressional Resolution authorizing the president to use force, “This resolution tells the world that the United States speaks with one determined voice.”

    Nothing could be further from the truth. Large and growing numbers of Americans are saying “Not in our name.” They are saying it in full-page ads in major newspapers and they are saying it in the streets.

    They are making their voices heard and their presence felt. It is reminiscent of the period of the Vietnam War. The difference is that this war has not yet begun in earnest, which is not to say that the sanctions and the bombing in the no-fly zones have not already taken a large toll of victims.

    Only a few months ago, most Americans were not paying serious attention to the possibility of war. Now they are, and they are showing up in protest marches by the thousands. The number will swell to hundreds of thousands, even millions, if the bombs begin to fall on Baghdad.

    One recent ad in USA Today concludes: “Let us not allow the watching world today to despair of our silence and our failure to act. Instead, let the world hear our pledge: we will resist the machinery of war and repression and rally others to do everything possible to stop it.”

    Let me give you the example of the member of Congress from my district, Lois Capps. Just one month ago she was undecided on this issue, perhaps because the Democratic leadership in the Congress has been so timid with a few notable exceptions such as Senator Robert Byrd. Many of Capps’ constituents spoke to her in opposition to the war. When it came time for the vote on the war resolution, she was one of 133 members of the House of Representatives who voted No, along with 23 Senators.

    She stated: “I have not yet seen or heard any convincing evidence that Saddam Hussein is an immediate threat to our national security. Military action should always be a last resort, and we should work in concert with our allies and the U.N. to exhaust every possible diplomatic and economic solution to this problem. At this time I do not believe that the case has been made that force is the only option left to us.”

    I am here to ask your support in rallying the European Parliament to stand together with the growing number of Americans who are saying an increasingly clear and powerful No to this war — Not In Our Names.
    CHILDREN OF IRAQ

    The Bush administration is attempting to paint the face of Saddam on the people of Iraq. The children of Iraq deserve more from us. We must not accept the simplistic and militaristic solutions of the Bush administration — Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and others — who have their own agendas for war, including oil, dominance and revenge.

    If you visit the web site of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, you will find photographs of the children of Iraq, children who will become the collateral damage of this war just as they have been the collateral damage of US-led sanctions that have taken some one million lives. You will also find at this web site letters from Iraqi students to American students. These children do not deserve to be painted with the face of Saddam.
    PREEMPTIVE WAR

    Mr. Bush has put forward a doctrine of preemptive war. It is actually not a new doctrine, but it is dangerous and aggressive unilateralism at its most extreme.

    Preemptive war was once called “aggressive war,” and was described as a “Crime against peace” in the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals. Such war violates Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter. It includes “planning, preparation, initiation or waging a war of aggression.”

    At stake is the entire post World War II international order, including the United Nations system itself.
    A DEFINING MOMENT FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

    The Bush administration has already cajoled the US Congress to authorize preemptive war. This authorization is false because it is illegal. Congress cannot give the president the power to commit illegal acts, and war against Iraq cannot be legal unless it is properly authorized by the United Nations after all peaceful means have failed. We are far from that point.

    There are only two circumstances in which force is authorized under the United Nations Charter. First, there is self-defense, but this only comes into effect when a country is under attack or an attack is imminent, and then only until the United Nations Security Council becomes seized of the matter. In the case of Iraq, there is not a current or imminent attack and the United Nations Security Council is already seized of the matter.

    The second circumstance in which force is authorized under the UN Charter is when the Security Council determines that all peaceful means of resolving a conflict have failed. The Security Council has not made this determination in the case of Iraq, despite the Bush administration’s efforts to push it in this direction.

    Mr. Bush also places the UN in jeopardy by his threats to act unilaterally if he decides it is necessary. One former US diplomat recently referred to the Bush administration as “hectoring radical unilateralists.” He means by this that the approach of the administration is that of a bully. We must stand up to this bully in the name of peace, justice and international law.

    Senator Robert Byrd, a wise octogenarian and a hero on this issue in the US Senate, said: “S.J. Resolution 46 would give the president blanket authority to launch a unilateral, pre-emptive attack on a sovereign nation that is perceived to be a threat to the United States…. This is an unprecedented and unfounded interpretation of the president’s authority under the Constitution of the United States, not to mention the fact that it stands the Charter of the United Nations on its head.”
    HYPOCRISY

    The Bush administration is more inclined to practice hypocrisy than democracy. The administration’s hypocrisy takes many forms. The most pronounced forms are Nuclear hypocrisy, Compliance hypocrisy and Criminal Justice hypocrisy. In each of these areas the Bush administration practices a clear double standard.

    Nuclear Hypocrisy

    Joseph S. McGinnis, Acting Head of the US delegation to the First Committee of the UN, recently stated when introducing a resolution (L.54) on Compliance with Arms Limitation and Disarmament Agreements:

    “The US believes that every country in the world should be a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. We also believe that every country that has signed and ratified these agreements should comply fully with their provisions, and that States Parties must hold each other accountable and take appropriate steps to deter violations.”

    The US has been in standing violation of its Article VI obligations for nuclear disarmament since the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force in 1970.

    The Bush administration has shown no inclination to comply with obligations of the 1995 and 2000 NPT Review Conferences. It has failed to submit the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the Senate for ratification, pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and entered into a fraudulent Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT) that will reduce some of the currently actively deployed strategic nuclear weapons but will not make these cuts irreversible. Rather, this treaty will allow for the deactivated weapons to be placed in storage, where they will actually be more likely to be available to terrorists.

    The Bush Nuclear Posture Review calls for retaining nuclear weapons in perpetuity, calls for contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries, indicates a willingness to use nuclear weapons against chemical or biological weapons attacks, and outlines plans for more useable nuclear weapons such as bunker busters.

    Further, the Bush administration has formed alliances with Pakistan and India, although both have developed nuclear arsenals. The administration has never even raised the issue of Israel having developed a nuclear arsenal, despite long-standing calls for a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, including in Security Council Resolution 687, the resolution that laid down the terms of Iraqi disarmament.

    Regarding biological weapons, the Bush administration sabotaged six years of negotiations to add an inspection and verification protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention. The Bush administration also forced the resignation and replacement of Jose Bustani, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). They disliked Bustani because he had encouraged Iraq to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and become part of its inspection regime, a step that would have made military action against Iraq even less justifiable.

    Compliance Hypocrisy

    The Bush administration is ready to go to war with Iraq to achieve compliance with UN Security Council resolutions. Yet, there are many other violations of Security Council resolutions by other nations, including US allies Israel and Turkey, for which the US shows little or no concern.

    Additionally, the Bush administration has indicated a willingness to engage in diplomatic efforts to seek a peaceful solution to the recent revelation by North Korea that it is developing nuclear weapons.

    Criminal Justice Hypocrisy

    Bush has withdrawn the US signature from the International Criminal Court and has sworn that US leaders will never be subject to the Court’s jurisdiction, yet he has threatened to bring Iraqi leaders to an International Tribunal should they use weapons of mass destruction if attacked by the US.
    CONCLUSIONS

    — The international community must stand firm in rejecting a US initiated preemptive war against Iraq.

    — The states of the European Union can help lead the way in preventing the Bush administration from standing the international system on its head with its plans for preemptive war. They can also engage in the hard work of negotiations and diplomacy to find a peaceful solution to the current compliance issues with Iraq and with other countries currently out of compliance with Security Council Resolutions and other multinational treaties such as the NPT.

    — Double standards in the international system must be ended, and a single standard must be applied to all, even the sole remaining superpower.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His latest book is Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • A Bleak Day for America

    A Bleak Day for America

    Today is a bleak day for America, and for all Americans. Congress, in its fear and conformity, has voted to grant authority to the President to conduct a preemptive war against another nation. Congress has joined the President in assuming an imperial mantle, granting powers above and beyond our obligations under international and domestic law.

    Would that Congress had heeded its wiser and saner voices, such as Senator Robert Byrd, who cautioned restraint and warned that the vote to authorize the rush to war undermined our Constitution. Only Congress has the power to declare war under the US Constitution. It cannot legally give this power over to the president.

    “We are at the gravest of moments,” Senator Byrd told his colleagues. “Members of Congress must not simply walk away from their Constitutional responsibilities. We are the directly elected representatives of the American people, and the American people expect us to carry out our duty, not simply hand it off to this or any other president. To do so would be to fail the people we represent and to fall woefully short of our sworn oath to support and defend the Constitution.”

    International law, as imbedded in the United Nations Charter, allows for war under two tightly circumscribed conditions. First, a nation may engage in force for self-defense when an attack occurs or is imminent, but only if there is not time to take the matter to the United Nations Security Council and only until the United Nations Security Council assumes control of the situation. Second, a nation may engage in force when duly authorized by the United Nations Security Council after all efforts to secure the peace by peaceful means have failed.

    Despite the congressional vote of false authority to the President, neither of these conditions of authorization to engage in war has been fulfilled. There is no evidence that an attack by Iraq on the United States or any other nation is imminent. Nor have the peaceful means to resolve Iraq’s compliance with earlier Security Council resolutions calling for dismantlement of weapons of mass destruction been pursued since the United Nations, under pressure from the United States, pulled its inspectors out of Iraq four years ago. Iraq has indicated its willingness to resume inspections, but the Bush administration has been reluctant to take Yes for an answer and accept their offer of compliance.

    September 11th will be remembered in America as the tragic day terrorists made evident the vulnerability of even the world’s most powerful nation. October 11th should be remembered as the day that Congress meekly and uncourageously gave to the President of the United States the illegal authority to commit preemptive war. Such war, in the context of World War II called “aggressive war,” is what Nazi and Japanese leaders were held to account for at the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials following World War II.

    Such war is far from the proud traditions of America dating back to its Declaration of Independence. This is not the way that America should be leading the world, for it will result in international chaos, instability and increased insecurity. Now it is up to ordinary Americans to take to the streets and by their presence make it known in Washington and throughout the world that the American public does not support putting the face of Saddam on the innocent children of Iraq; nor does it support high-altitude bombing and other of acts of aggressive warfare in the name of a false and Orwellian peace.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His latest book is Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • As General Debate of 57th General Assembly Opens, Secretary-General Stresses Indispensable Necessity of Multilateralism

    United States President Bush Calls on International Community To Stand Up for Its Security, Saying Iraqi Government a ‘Grave Danger’

    Opening the general debate of the fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly this morning, Secretary-General Kofi Annan strongly reaffirmed the indispensable necessity and enduring relevance of multilateralism and multilateral institutions in efforts to maintain international peace, security and freedom for all.

    “I stand before you today as a multilateralist -– by precedent, by principle, by Charter and by duty”, he told delegations and world leaders. Recalling the 11 September terrorist attacks on the United States, he said the sustained global response to meet that “brutal and criminal challenge” could only be successful by making use of multilateral institutions. When countries worked together in such institutions –- developing, respecting and when necessary, enforcing international law –- they also developed mutual trust and cooperation on other issues, including ensuring open markets and providing protection from acid rain, global warming or the spread of HIV/AIDS.

    The more a country made use of multilateral institutions — on matters large or small — the more others would trust and respect that country and the stronger its chance to exercise true leadership. “And among multilateral institutions, this universal Organization has a special place”, he said. When States decided to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, there was no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations.

    He said the existence of an effective international security system depended on the Security Council’s authority -– and therefore the Council must have the political will to act, even in the most difficult cases, when agreement seemed elusive. The primary criterion for putting an issue on the Council’s agenda should not be the receptiveness of the parties, but the existence of a grave threat to world peace. Highlighting several challenges facing the international community today, he noted that the leadership of Iraq continued to defy mandatory Council resolutions and urged that country to comply with its obligations. If Iraq’s defiance continued, the Council must face its responsibilities.

    George Bush, President of the United States, said the United Nations had been born of the hope of a world moving towards justice, escaping old patterns of

    conflict and fear. The Security Council had been created so that diplomatic deliberations would be more than talk, and resolutions would be more than wishes. After generations of deceitful dictators and broken treaties, the international community had dedicated itself to standards of dignity shared by all and to a system of security defended by all. Today, those standards and that security were challenged.

    Iraq had answered a decade of United Nations resolutions with a decade of defiance. “All the world now faces a test”, he said, “and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment.” And as the Assembly met today, it had been almost four years since last United Nations inspectors had set foot in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein’s actions, as well as history, logic and the facts, could lead to but one conclusion -– the Iraqi regime was a grave and gathering danger. To assume that regime’s good faith was to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. “And that is a risk we must not take.” Saddam Hussein continued to defy those efforts and to build weapons of mass destruction — a threat to the authority of the United Nations and a threat to peace.

    Were Security Council resolutions to be honoured and enforced? he asked. Or were they to be cast aside without consequence? Would the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or would it be irrelevant? The partnership of nations could meet the test before it by making clear what was expected of the Iraqi regime. The purposes of the United States should not be doubted –- Council resolutions would be enforced and the demands of peace and security would be met, or action would be unavoidable. The international community must stand up for its security and for the permanent rights and hopes of mankind. By heritage and by choice, the United States would make that stand. Representatives of United Nations Member States had the power to make that stand as well.

    Explaining that the root causes of terrorism were a sense of frustration and powerlessness to redress persistent injustice, Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan said that while terrorist attacks needed to be condemned, they should not be used to justify outlawing the struggles of a people for self-determination and liberation from colonial or foreign occupation, nor used to justify State terrorism. India had misused the rationale of war against terrorism against Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir, but his country would not be coerced or frightened into compromising on its principled position. The conflict in occupied Kashmir was being waged by Kashmiris, who needed to be allowed to exercise their right to determine their own future.

    He went on to say that, unfortunately, the war against terrorism had been used as a vehicle to spread hatred against Islam and Muslims. As a first step in creating a sustained dialogue between the Islamic and Western nations, he proposed the adoption of a Declaration on Religious and Cultural Understanding, Harmony and Cooperation. His own Government was focused upon restoring the traditions of a tolerant Islam, he said, and had laid the foundations for sustainable development and democracy in three short years by empowering people through the devolution of decision-making to the grass-roots level, improving human rights, rationalizing

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    economic policies and setting up the first Human Development Fund in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

    Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark, speaking on behalf of the European Union, affirmed that the terrorist attacks of 11 September last year had not weakened, but rather had strengthened the resolve of its members to actively seek security and prosperity for all.

    Iraq remained a major source of concern as well, with regard to weapons of mass destruction, he said. Unconditional and unimpeded access for the weapons inspectors was needed, as well as compliance with the obligations contained in the several Security Council resolutions on the situation in Iraq. The European Union agreed with the United States position that the Security Council urgently needed to address the matter of Iraq. It also agreed with the Secretary-General’s statement that if Iraq’s defiance continued, the Security Council would need to face its responsibilities.

    He said the greatest global challenge remained the fight to rid the world of persistent poverty. Recognizing that aid alone would not eliminate poverty, he saluted the African leaders, who had taken an impressive lead with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) initiative. Strong political will and partnership was required to translate poverty eradication policies into sustainable development. He also extended the European Union’s welcome to the new United Nations Members, Switzerland and East Timor.

    Also participating in this morning’s debate were Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa; Alejandro Toledo, President of Peru; Georgi Parvanov, President of Bulgaria; Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of Latvia; Valdas Adamkus, President of Lithuania; Rene Harris, President of Nauru and Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe. The Minister for Foreign Relations of Brazil also spoke.

    The general debate of the fifty-seventh General Assembly will continue this afternoon at 3 p.m.

    Background

    The General Assembly began its annual general debate this morning following the presentation by the Secretary-General of his annual report.

    Statement by Secretary-General

    Secretary-General KOFI ANNAN said the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 were an extreme example of a global scourge that required a broad, sustained and global response. A broad response, because terrorism could be defeated only if all nations united against it. A sustained response, because the battle would not be won easily, or overnight. A global response, because terrorism was a widespread and complex phenomenon, with many deep roots and exacerbating factors.

    Such a response could only succeed if full use was made of multilateral institutions. “I stand before you today as a multilateralist -– by precedent, by principle, by Charter and by duty”, he said.

    Any government committed to the rule of law at home must also be committed to the rule of law abroad, he said. All States had a clear interest, as well as a clear responsibility, to uphold international law and maintain international order. On almost no item on the agenda did anyone seriously contend that each nation could fend for itself. Even the most powerful countries knew that they needed to work with others, in multilateral institutions, to achieve their aims.

    Only by multilateral action could it be ensured that open markets offered benefits and opportunities to all; that people in the least developed countries were offered the chance to escape the ugly misery of poverty; that protections were possible from global warming, the spread of HIV/AIDS, or the odious traffic in human beings. Only concerted vigilance and cooperation among all States offered any real hope of denying terrorists their opportunities. When countries worked together in multilateral institutions –- developing, respecting, and enforcing international law, they also developed mutual trust. The more a country made use of multilateral institutions, the more others would trust and respect it. And among multilateral institutions, the universal Organization had a special place. When States decided to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, there was no substitute for the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations.

    He said the existence of an effective international security system depended on the Security Council’s authority –- and therefore the Council must have the political will to act, even in the most difficult cases, when agreement seemed elusive. The primary criterion for putting an issue on the Council’s agenda should not be the receptiveness of the parties, but the existence of a grave threat to world peace.

    He said the limited objectives of reconciling Israel’s legitimate security concerns with Palestinian humanitarian needs could not be achieved in isolation from the wider political context. The ultimate shape of a Middle East peace settlement had been defined long ago in Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, as well as in resolution 1397: land for peace; an end to terror and to occupation; two States, Israel and Palestine, living side by side within secure and recognized borders. An international peace conference was needed without delay to set out a roadmap of parallel steps. Meanwhile, humanitarian steps to relieve Palestinian suffering must be intensified.

    The leadership of Iraq continued to defy mandatory resolutions adopted by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter. Efforts to obtain Iraq’s compliance with the Council’s resolutions must continue, he said, appealing to all who had influence with Iraq’s leaders to impress on them the vital importance of accepting the weapons inspections. He urged Iraq to comply with its obligations. If Iraq’s defiance continued, the Council must face its responsibilities.

    The Secretary-General also pressed leaders of the international community to maintain their commitment to Afghanistan. It had been the international community’s shameful neglect of Afghanistan in the 1990s that had allowed that country to slide into chaos, providing a fertile breeding ground for Al Qaeda. Afghanistan’s Government must be helped to extend its authority throughout the country, and donors must follow through on their commitments. Otherwise, the Afghan people would lose hope -– and desperation bred violence.

    In South Asia, the world had recently come closer than for many years to a direct conflict between two nuclear-weapon capable countries, he said. The situation, while a little calmer, remained perilous. The underlying causes must be addressed. If a fresh crisis erupted, the international community might have a role to play.

    In conclusion, he asked all to honour their pledge of two years ago, at the Millennium Summit, “to make the United Nations a more effective instrument” in the service of the world’s people.

    Statements in Debate

    CELSO LAFER, Minister for Foreign Relations of Brazil, said that Brazil had faith in the United Nations. The Organization was at a difficult juncture that called for measures sustained by the principles on which the United Nations was founded. Throughout the eight years of the Presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, certain fundamental requirements had been recurrent, including fostering democratic decision-making and overcoming the governance deficit in international relations. They also included designing a new financial architecture and providing effective solutions for volatility in capital flows; defending a fair and balanced multilateral trade regime; and affirming the value of human rights and development.

    Brazil could not face those challenges alone, he said. That was why President Cardoso had sought to strengthen the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) together with South American integration. The President had also promoted the development of partnerships in all continents, pursuing well-balanced negotiations with countries taking part in the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Brazil was committed to seeing the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol and the establishment of the International Criminal Court; to furthering the social development agenda and to moving forward on nuclear and conventional disarmament. The electoral process currently under way in Brazil would strengthen democracy in the country. Brazil’s commitment to the United Nations and to multilateralism would not waver.

    The tangled interests that formed a global Web of interdependence could only be managed through authority rooted in multilateral institutions and in respect for international law, he said. The commitment to negotiated settlements, under the aegis of multilateralism, must be upheld. Lasting solutions to terrorism, international drug trafficking and organized crime required careful and persistent efforts to set up partnerships and cooperative arrangements consistent with the United Nations multilateral system. Protectionism and all forms of barriers to trade, both tariff and non-tariff continued to suffocate development economies and to nullify the competitiveness of their exports. Liberalization of the agricultural sector had been nothing more than a promise repeatedly put off to an uncertain future. Globalization required reform of economic and financial institutions and should not be limited to the triumph of the market.

    The situation in the Middle East underscored how distant the world still was from the international order imagined by the founders of the United Nations Charter, he continued. Brazil supported the creation of a democratic, secure and economically viable Palestinian State as well as the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. Brazil also defended the right of the State of Israel to exist within recognized borders and of its people to live in security. Those were essential prerequisites for lasting peace in the Middle East. The use of force at the international level was only admissible once all diplomatic alternatives had been exhausted. Force must only be exercised in accordance with the Charter and consistent with the determinations of the Security Council.

    Regarding Iraq, Brazil believed that it was incumbent on the Security Council to determine the necessary measures to ensure full compliance with the relevant resolutions, he said. The exercise by the Security Council of its responsibilities was the way to reduce tensions and to avoid the unpredictable consequences of wider instability. In Angola, the international community must support recent positive developments that opened the way for rebuilding the country and consolidating peace. The Security Council needed reform so as to enhance its legitimacy and to lay the foundations for more solid international cooperation in building a just and stable international order. A central feature of reform should be the expansion of the number of members, both in the permanent and non-permanent categories. The United Nations was the crucial hinge in creating global governance focused on a more equitable distribution of the dividends of peace and progress.

    GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States, said meeting one year and one day after a terrorist attack that had brought grief to his country and the citizens of many others, it was time to turn to the urgent duty of protecting other lives -– without illusion and without fear. While much had been accomplished during the past year in Afghanistan and beyond, much remained to be done –- in Afghanistan and beyond. Many nations represented in the Assembly Hall had joined in the fight against global terrorism, and the people of the United States were grateful.

    He said the United Nations had been born of the hope of a world moving towards justice, escaping old patterns of conflict and fear. The founding fathers had resolved that the peace of the world would never again be destroyed by the wickedness of any man. The Security Council had been created so that –- unlike the League of Nations -– diplomatic deliberations would be more than talk, and resolutions would be more than wishes. After generations of deceitful dictators, broken treaties and squandered lives, the international community had dedicated itself to standards of dignity shared by all and to a system of security defended by all. Today, those standards and that security were challenged.

    The international community’s commitment to human dignity was challenged by persistent poverty and raging disease. The suffering was great, and the responsibility was clear. The United States was joining with the world to supply aid where it reached people and uplifted lives. It would also extend trade and the prosperity it brought. As a symbol of its commitment to human dignity, the United States would return to the newly reformed United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and would participate fully in its mission to advance human rights, tolerance and learning.

    He said the international community’s common security was challenged by regional conflicts -– ethnic and religious strife that was ancient but not inevitable. There could be no peace for either side in the Middle East without freedom for both sides. America stood committed to an independent and democratic Palestine, living beside Israel in peace and security. Like all other people, Palestinians deserved a government that served their interests. Above all, international security was challenged by outlaw groups and regimes that accepted no law of morality and had no limit to their violent ambitions. The threat hid within many nations, including his own, he said, and the greatest fear was that terrorists would find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplied them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale.

    He went on to say that all those dangers, in their most aggressive and lethal forms –- the very kind of threat the United Nations was born to confront — could be found in one place and in one regime. Twelve years ago, Iraq had invaded Kuwait without provocation, and the regime’s forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources. Yet, that aggression had been stopped by the might of coalition forces and the will of the United Nations. To suspend hostilities and to spare himself, Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein had entered into a series of commitments. The terms had been clear and he had agreed to comply with all those obligations. Instead, he had proven only his contempt for the United Nations and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge -– by his deceptions and cruelties -– Saddam Hussein had made the case against himself.

    In 1991, Security Council resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease at once the repression of its own people, including the systematic repression of minorities. That demand had been ignored. Through resolutions 686 and 687, the Council demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq’s regime had agreed, but subsequently had broken that promise. Further promises to comply with Council resolutions, on renouncing involvement with terrorism, and ceasing the support of terrorism, had also been broken by the Iraqi regime.

    He added that Iraq’s Government openly praised the terrorist attacks of

    11 September. Moreover, that regime had agreed to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles and to comply with rigorous biological and chemical weapons inspections headed by the United Nations. It did not live up to those promises, and the inspections revealed that Iraq likely maintained stockpiles of anthrax, mustard gas and other chemical agents.

    He went on to say that today, Iraq continued to withhold important information about its nuclear weapons programme. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. He went on to say that Saddam Hussein had subverted the United Nations “oil-for-food” programme, working around the sanctions imposed in 1991 to buy missile technology and military materials. Hussein blamed the suffering of Iraq’s people on the United Nations, even as he used oil wealth to build lavish palaces for himself and armed his country. As the Assembly met today, it had been almost four years since the last United Nations inspectors had set foot in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein’s actions, as well as history, logic and the facts, could lead to but one conclusion -– the Iraqi regime was a grave and gathering danger.

    To suggest otherwise was to hope against the evidence, President Bush continued. To assume that regime’s good faith was to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. “And that is a risk we must not take.” The international community had been more than patient, trying sanctions, the “carrot” of oil for food and the “stick” of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein continued to defy those efforts and to build weapons of mass destruction. That regime’s conduct was a threat to the authority of the United Nations and a threat to peace.

    Iraq had answered a decade of United Nations resolutions with a decade of defiance. “All the world now faces a test”, he said, “and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment.” Were Security Council resolutions to be honoured and enforced? Or were they to be cast aside without consequence? Would the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or would it be irrelevant?

    He said that as a founding Member of the United Nations, the United States wanted the Organization to be effective, respected and successful. It wanted the resolutions of the world’s most important multilateral body to be enforced. The partnership of nations could meet the test before it by making clear what was expected of the Iraqi regime. If the Iraqi regime wished peace it must, among other things, immediately and unconditionally disclose, remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and other materials. It must also release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fates remained unaccounted for. It must cease persecution of its civilian populations, and immediately end all illicit trade outside the “oil-for-food” programme. If those steps were taken, it would signal a new openness and accountability in Iraq. And it would open the prospect of the United Nations helping to build a government that represented all Iraqis -– based on human rights, economic liberty and internationally supervised elections.

    The United States had no quarrel with the people of Iraq, for they had suffered too long, he continued. Liberty for the Iraqi people was a great moral cause and strategic objective. They deserved it, and the security of all nations required it. The United States supported political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq. The United States would work with the Security Council on a new resolution to meet the international community’s common challenge. If the Iraqi regime defied the international community again, the world must move deliberately and decisively to hold it in account. The purposes of the United States should not be doubted -– Security Council resolutions would be enforced and the demands of peace and security would be met or action would be unavoidable. “And a regime that had lost its legitimacy will also lose its power”, he said.

    Events could turn in one of two ways. If the international community failed to act in the face of danger, the people of Iraq would continue to live in brutal submission, and the people of the wider region would continue to be bullied. Perhaps horrors even worse than 11 September would be wrought. But if the international community met its responsibilities, the people of Iraq could shake off their captivity and one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reform throughout the Muslim world. The international community must stand up for its security and for the permanent rights and hopes of mankind. By heritage and by choice, the United States would make that stand. And representatives of United Nations Member States had the power to make that stand as well.

    THABO MBEKI, President of South Africa, called on the United Nations to assist Africa in realizing its long-deferred dreams. He said the African Union, the successor to the Organization of African Unity, was the continent’s practical and determined response to its past and present, and the Union’s programme for its revitalization was the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).

    He called on the African Union, working with United Nations agencies, to give priority to such matters as human resources development and capacity-building, modernizing Africa’s economy and dealing with the intolerable debt burden, the emancipation and empowerment of women, AIDS and environmental degradation, among other things.

    He expressed approval for the peace processes taking place in such troubled areas as Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Sudan and noted that elections had been successfully held in the Comoros. This would bring about the rebuilding of these countries with a better life for all.

    Mr. Mbeki also urged a concrete programme of action to implement the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development and was equally emphatic about the obligation to give real meaning to the message of hope proclaimed in the Millennium Declaration, as an answer to the murderous attack of 11 September 2001.

    The Millennium Declaration, he said, recognized that the central challenge of the world today was to make globalization a positive force for he world’s people. This had to be ensured so that sustainable development and prosperity for all would take place.

    ALEJANDRO TOLEDO, President of Peru, reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the international community to fight for democracy and international security. He also condemned the terrorist attacks perpetrated against the people of the United States on 11 September 2001. Peru was committed to continued collaboration with the Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee. Nations must weave a vast network of commitments to cooperate in all areas to defeat terrorism. Decisive steps should be taken to eradicate terrorism, which threatened peace, security and democracy.

    Peace was an essential condition for human development, he said. Peru promoted limiting defence spending at the regional level with the goal of freeing resources for social investment and the fight against poverty. Today, more than ever, the international community must commit to the construction of a participatory and efficient system of collective security. Peru had promoted the Andean Charter for Peace and Security, approved last June by the Andean community. In the same spirit, Peru had reaffirmed its commitment to creating a South American Zone of Peace and Cooperation and proposed the inclusion of the topic in the agenda of the Assembly’s fifty-eighth session.

    The construction of peace and good governance was an indispensable prerequisite for the preservation of liberty, he said. Peru was aware of the urgent need to develop multilateral efforts to strengthen democracies. He reiterated Peru’s proposal to create a Mechanism of Financial Solidarity for the Defence of Democracy and Good Governance. The time had come to be creative. Emerging democracies urgently required new resources that would allow them to increase levels of public investment within their regions in order to generate employment and protect them from adverse financial shocks. Peruvian democracy was not an island in Latin America and the world. Peru was committed to facing great problems and challenges through the construction of democracy in a more just world. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, international democracy had a name: the United Nations.

    PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, President of Pakistan, said that his country was at the forefront of the fight against terrorism. Determined to prevent its being used as a staging ground for terrorist attacks, Pakistan had interdicted the infiltration of Al Qaeda into its territory and had arrested and deported foreign suspects. Unfortunately, however, the war against terrorism had been used as a vehicle to spread hatred against Islam and Muslims. As a first step in creating a sustained dialogue between the Islamic and Western nations, he proposed the adoption of a Declaration on Religious and Cultural Understanding, Harmony and Cooperation.

    Explaining that the root causes of terrorism were a sense of frustration and powerlessness to redress persistent injustice, he said that while terrorist attacks needed to be condemned, they should not be used to justify outlawing the struggles of a people for self-determination and liberation from colonial or foreign occupation, nor used to justify State terrorism. India had misused the rationale of war against terrorism against Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir, but his country would not be coerced or frightened into compromising on its principled position. The conflict in occupied Kashmir was being waged by Kashmiris, who needed to be allowed to exercise their right to determine their own future.

    President Musharraf pledged that Pakistan would not start a conflict with India, but would fully exercise its right to self-defence if attacked. Achieving peace in South Asia required the following steps: mutual withdrawal of forward-deployed forces by both States; observance of a ceasefire along the Line of Control in Kashmir; and cessation of India’s State terrorism against the Kashmiri people. In addition, the two parties needed to resume a dialogue that included the people of Kashmir and to agree upon measures for nuclear restraint and a conventional arms balance. Hindu extremism also needed to be opposed by the international community.

    His own Government was focused upon restoring the traditions of a tolerant Islam, he said, and had laid the foundations for sustainable development and democracy in three short years by empowering people through the devolution of decision-making to the grassroots level, improving human rights, rationalizing economic policies and setting up the first Human Development Fund in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme. National and provincial elections were to be held in 30 days.

    Furthermore, Pakistan fully supported the positive changes in Afghanistan and that country’s President Hamid Karzai. The attempt last week to assassinate him underlined the need for an expanded international presence in Afghanistan. Also of concern were the urgent need to revive the Middle East peace process, the importance of the war against poverty and the pernicious aspects of the international banking system, which allowed corrupt elites to stash away money illegally acquired from developing and developed countries.

    GEORGI PARVANOV, President of Bulgaria, outlined what the main tasks of the fifty-seventh session should be. Attention had to be paid to the Millennium Declaration, the fight against terrorism and the persistent problems of underdevelopment and poverty. Unfortunately, the United Nations continued to focus instead on regional conflicts.

    In that regard, he called for assistance to the people of Afghanistan, especially relief from their foreign debt, and identified as urgent the implementation of Security Council resolutions concerning Iraq. Firm action had to be undertaken to win compliance.

    As a member of the Security Council and a party to all universal conventions against terrorism, Bulgaria commended the work being done to counteract the phenomenon. But he warned that “the fight against terrorism should not lead to persecution on religious or ethnic grounds or infringe on human rights”.
    Turning his attention to developments in South-Eastern Europe, he recommended the strengthening of democratic institutions and human rights along with economic development as the means to prevent conflicts. He ended his address by expressing support for the reform measures initiated by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in order to make the United Nations more effective.

    VAIRA VIKE-FREIBERGA, President of Latvia, welcomed Switzerland as the newest Member of the United Nations and recognized the concerted efforts of the United Nations and the international community towards creating a climate of peace and security, in which East Timor had become master of its own destiny and would soon join the United Nations. She also expressed Latvia’s continued solidarity and sympathy with the people of the United States, upon the anniversary of

    11 September. That contemptible act of aggression against the United States was a direct and frontal assault against the civilized world as a whole.

    The deep-seated respect for the sanctity of human life was the foundation of civilized society, she said. Determined to do everything in its power to stem the growing threat of international terrorism, Latvia intended to ratify all international antiterrorist conventions and increase the capacity of its administrative, security, law enforcement and military structures. Latvia continued to harmonize its national legislation with international and European Union standards, to tighten its control of immigration and the flow of strategic goods, to improve its air and border surveillance capabilities, emergency response procedures and public preparedness in emergency situations.

    She noted that Iraq continued to ignore repeated calls to allow United Nations weapons inspectors on its territory, which reinforced credible suspicions that it had sought to produce nuclear, chemical, bacteriological and other weapons of mass destruction. Among other pressing global issues facing the United Nations were organized crime and illegal trafficking, the abuse and exploitation of women and children, endemic poverty and unemployment, drug addiction, disease and environmental pollution. Continued work was needed on the reduction of poverty and increasing administrative capacity and financial discipline at the United Nations. However, progress had been made on the reform of peacekeeping operations and collaboration among United Nations institutions.

    Committed to sustainable development, Latvia had ratified the Kyoto Protocol and had established a Sustainable Development Council. She also noted Latvia’s success in changing its status with the United Nations Development Programme from recipient to net contributor. Now providing technical assistance and expertise to Ukraine, Georgia and Croatia, Latvia had one of the fastest growing economies in Europe and hoped to receive official invitations to join the European Union and the NATO Alliance soon. Her country had provided humanitarian aid to war-torn areas in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and was committed to the reduction of disparities in income and standards of living essential for the consolidation of peace and security. Each nation had its own contribution to make to humanity, whose benefit the United Nations was created to serve.

    VALDAS ADAMKUS, President of Lithuania, welcomed Switzerland and East Timor to the United Nations family. Expansion of United Nations membership was very important, and was taking place at a time when the need for global solidarity and partnership was greater than ever. Terrorism threatened global stability and the very basis of our lives. Countries must stand united and act together to avert threats to our existence and secure the future of our children.

    He said his country knew the power of solidarity. Some years ago, Lithuania and eight other countries from Central and Eastern Europe had formed an informal Vilnius Group, which had now grown to 10, to facilitate their accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Solidarity and mutual support were helping to make that happen. Hopefully, those countries would soon join the European Union and NATO, thus reinforcing common values in the region as well as common positions and actions in the face of future challenges and threats.

    Political stability, however, was not enough, he stressed. Those countries had also launched regional initiatives and taken other concrete steps to increase contributions to the global campaign against terrorism. The conference against terrorism was held at the Polish initiative of Poland in Warsaw last November; participating countries were determined to act and cooperate further, thus strengthening European and global security. In the face of common threats, solidarity must emerge as a consolidating driving force in global diplomacy.

    The tragedy of 11 September reinforced and strengthened the common resolve to combat and counter terrorism, he said. That should motivate the international community to work together to address the roots of terrorism; respond decisively to non-compliance with Security Council resolutions and gross violations of internationally recognized norms of behaviour; and fight terror worldwide and keep the weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. Regrettably, a Member of the United Nations did not uphold its commitments and the underlying principles of the Organization. The Iraqi regime must allow unrestricted access for the United Nations inspectors to resume their work. All pressure should be exerted to ensure that objective. Indeed, that was a test case of the international community’s solidarity and unity.

    RENE HARRIS, President of Nauru, conveying condolences to the United States because of the terrorist attacks of last year, expressed full support for anti-terrorism measures contained in Security Council resolution 1373. He also wished the best future for the International Criminal Court. Commending the United Nations operations in East Timor, he supported that country’s entry into the Organization.

    Turning to issues facing the Pacific islands, he called for a universal campaign to address climate change and for the United States and Australia to ratify the protocol. The health of oceans was another major concern, and he said all users of that resource must work to prevent pollution and unsustainable use. He expressed concern over transshipment of nuclear waste through Pacific waters, and supported the United Nations action to make the Pacific a nuclear-weapon-free zone.

    In other areas, he reiterated his strong objection to the creation of tax “black lists” by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), preferring the development of a cooperative framework for that issue. He said that Nauru also had done all it could to combat money laundering, yet it was still subject to adverse criticism. Nonetheless, it had provided relevant information and would continue to work on satisfying key players on the issue.

    Finally, he said the most pressing issues currently facing Nauru were energy, freshwater supply and the economy in general, and he hoped for international partnerships in those areas. He supported reform of the Security Council and further budgetary reform in the United Nations. He announced the honouring of Nauru’s pledge to the Global Health Fund and called on all States to follow suit, underlining the reliance of small States on the United Nations in the post 9/11 world.

    ROBERT MUGABE, President of Zimbabwe, informed delegates that his country had completed its fast-track land redistribution programme which began in July 2000. He said the programme had been undertaken to redress the colonial injustice of dispossession perpetrated by a minority of British settlers in 1890.

    “By assuming its independence in 1980, Zimbabwe had discarded the colonial yoke for all time and, therefore, will never brook any interference in its domestic affairs by any foreign Power”, he stressed. He added that Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, needed to be informed of this. Having already waged a revolutionary struggle to secure its independence, Zimbabwe stood ready to defend it in the same way.

    A similar problem of outside interference also affected the Palestinian question, one that should be resolved without further delay. “We note with some concern that some countries wish to arrogate to themselves the right to choose and/or impose leadership in developing countries by sidelining and/or overthrowing democratically elected governments.” That must be resisted, he said.

    Even as he acknowledged terrorism as a threat, he also warned, “The adoption of unilateral measures by some countries to combat terrorism is not only counterproductive but also undermines the mandate and effectiveness of the United Nations.”

    He was fully supportive of the emergence of peace in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, adding his country was withdrawing its remaining forces there.

    In the economic arena, Zimbabwe wanted the decisions of the Monterrey International Conference on Financing for Development and the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South Africa, to result in meaningful cooperation among development partners. The World Trade Organization (WTO) should also create a level playing field so that exports from developing countries could have access to developed markets. And, because of the drought in southern Africa, the region was in urgent need of food and other aid.

    ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN, Prime Minister of Denmark, speaking on behalf of the European Union, affirmed that the terrorist attacks of 11 September last year had not weakened, but rather strengthened the resolve of its members to actively seek security and prosperity for all. For its part, the European Union did not hesitate to support the initiatives of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee and remained committed to finalizing and adopting the Comprehensive Convention against Terrorism.

    The Millennium Declaration, he said, had given the United Nations renewed impetus to deal globally with conflict prevention, crisis management, humanitarian assistance, post-conflict rehabilitation and development, and disarmament and arms control. The European Union had worked tirelessly with the United Nations to find solutions in the Middle East and Cyprus, to rebuild Afghanistan, to hold in check the civil war in Sierra Leone and to rebuild Kosovo.

    Iraq remained a major source of concern as well, with regard to weapons of mass destruction, he said. Unconditional and unimpeded access for the weapons inspectors was needed, as well as compliance with the obligations contained in the several Security Council resolutions on the situation in Iraq. The European Union agreed with the United States position that the Security Council urgently needed to address the matter of Iraq. It also agreed with the Secretary-General’s statement that if Iraq’s defiance continued, the Security Council would need to face its responsibilities.

    On the subject of human rights, he urged the adoption of the draft protocol of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as well as the universal abolition of the death penalty. Sustainable development would not be achieved until women gained full possession of their human rights, including protection from murder and mutilation through a misguided sense of honour. Hailing the International Criminal Court as an important historic milestone, he commented that people did not need revenge or impunity, but justice and accountability.

    He concluded that the greatest global challenge remained the fight to rid the world of persistent poverty. Recognizing that aid alone would not eliminate poverty, he saluted the African leaders, who had taken an impressive lead with the NEPAD initiative. Strong political will and partnership was required to translate poverty eradication policies into sustainable development. He also extended the European Union’s welcome to the new United Nations Members, Switzerland and East Timor.

  • Policies Rooted In Arrogance Are Certain To Fail

    Policies Rooted In Arrogance Are Certain To Fail

    These are difficult times for peace. Since the Bush administration assumed power in the United States, there has been a steady beating on the drums of war accompanied by a systematic undermining of the foundations of international law. The September 11th terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon bolstered the Bush administration’s plans to secure US global military dominance through increased military budgets, deployment of missile defenses, development of more usable nuclear weapons and the weaponization of space. Congress has largely acquiesced in supporting these plans.

    The United States has always held to a double standard with regard to nuclear weapons. This double standard was given legal form in the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), in which five countries were designated as nuclear weapons states (United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France and China), and the rest were designated as non-nuclear weapons states. The latter agreed in the treaty not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for a promise by the nuclear weapons states to pursue good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament.

    Throughout the life of the NPT, the non-nuclear weapons states have called for more tangible signs of progress toward achieving the nuclear disarmament promise of the nuclear weapons states. They were successful in 2000 in getting the nuclear weapons states to commit unequivocally to undertake the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. However, the nuclear weapons states, and particularly the United States, have broken this promise as well as a string of other promises with regard to their NPT obligations.

    Now the United States has gone even further. It has developed policies for the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. In its secret 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, which was leaked to the media in March 2002, the United States outlined its intention to develop contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against seven countries (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Russia and China). Five of these are non-nuclear weapons states, which at a minimum contradicts the spirit of the NPT as well as previous US security assurances to non-nuclear weapons states.

    President Bush, flush with popularity from his war against Afghanistan, continues to threaten war against Iraq. The principal reason he gives for attacking Iraq is to replace its leader, Saddam Hussein, and to preemptively strike Iraq for its refusal to allow UN inspectors to assess whether or not it is developing weapons of mass destruction.

    Prior to the Bush administration, the US had a policy of nuclear deterrence, far from a policy that provided the United States with security from nuclear attack. The Bush administration has criticized deterrence policy but yet maintained it, while at the same time promoting policies of preemption.

    Preemption is the new catch-word of Bush’s nuclear policy. It is a means of assuring that a nuclear double standard continues to exist. It is a policy of nuclear apartheid in which select states are bestowed (or bestow upon themselves) nuclear privilege while others are attacked for seeking to enter the elite club of nuclear powers.

    Ironically, Bush’s nuclear policy makes it more likely that terrorists will obtain nuclear weapons or materials. The fraudulent arms control agreement that was signed in May 2002 by Bush and Putin, the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), allows thousands of nuclear warheads to be put in storage rather than destroying them. These stored nuclear warheads will be tempting targets for terrorists as will be the thousands of tons of nuclear materials available throughout the world that could be fashioned into nuclear or radiological weapons. The Bush administration is spending only approximately one-third of the three billion dollars per year called for by the US blue ribbon commission to prevent Russian nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists.

    Bush’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and his advances toward deployment of missile defenses are compelling China to substantially strengthen its nuclear forces aimed at the United States, as China forewarned it would do in these circumstances. Under Bush’s leadership, US allies in Europe and Asia will be brought in as “partners” in a global missile defense system that will be hugely expensive, unlikely to be effective and provide no protection against terrorists who would initiate their attacks, nuclear and otherwise, without launching missiles.

    Mr. Bush is squandering US leadership potential for global cooperation under international law, and instead pursuing policies that are based on military dominance, uncertain technology and nuclear apartheid. They are policies rooted in arrogance and certain to fail. They are, in fact, already failing by their allocation of resources to increasing the militarization of the planet rather than to meeting existing basic human needs that would help eradicate the fertile breeding grounds for continued terrorism and hatred of the United States.

  • Smoke and Mirror Security

    Last week, the Bush Administration took the American people a step backwards to the dark days of the Cold War. The U.S. formally withdrew from the Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia. The withdrawal from the treaty will facilitate Bush’s development of a National Missile Defense System.

    Now, without the treaty and with $8 billion earmarked for National Missile Defense, the Bush administration is clear to develop this controversial and questionable program. But we have a major problem; we simply don’t have the technology to make it work. According to Dr. David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists, President Bush is rushing to develop “systems [that] will not provide ’emergency capability’ against real-world threats, only the illusion of capability.”

    A National Missile Defense system would not have prevented September 11th. Every day we encounter more national security challenges that do not have military solutions. We don’t need government “hocus-pocus,” we need to invest our scarce economic resources on proven, cost effective ways to provide for our national security and the future of our children. The $8 billion ear marked for National Missile Defense could be better spent on rebuilding our national economy, improving schools, developing alternative energy resources to lessen our dependency on foreign fossil fuels and enhancing our homeland security: protecting our international borders, increasing airline security and expanding public health measures to combat bioterrorism.

    When President Bush first threatened withdrawal, I introduced House Resolution 313 with the support of 50 of my colleagues to keep the U.S. on the ABM treaty. Most recently, I joined 31 of my colleagues in a lawsuit charging that President Bush does not have the authority to unilaterally withdraw from a treaty without the consent of Congress.

    The ABM treaty is the cornerstone of international arms control. Now that more countries have nuclear weapons, international treaties are even more important. International cooperation is the way to peace and international security; not increased military build-up. Over the past 30 years, ABM treaty has been a vital link to working with the international community and it is more important than ever that we not turn our back on it.