It's Time to Shut down the U.N.

By Mike Whitney
Jun. 07, 2007

We should all be grateful that the United Nations has decided to investigate the assassination of Rafik Hariri. The decision moves the UN one step closer to its final destruction, which would be the best possible outcome.

The United Nations is a fraud. It’s little more than a rubber stamp for US-Israeli aggression. No one is fooled by the UN’s “democratic” pretensions or the Secretary-General’s lofty-sounding rhetoric. The UN serves the exclusive interests of western, white elites. Period. It is basically an annex of the US federal government---another inconsequential bureau whose main purpose is to lend international legitimacy to America's war-mongering.

China and Russia have seats on the Security Council, but that doesn’t mean anything. They don’t use their power to lobby for war or to block the enforcement of resolutions that they don’t like. At best, they may occasionally use their veto-power to try to slow Washington’s “march to war”; but it rarely does any good. Bush only uses the Security Council when it suits him; otherwise, he just brushes it aside. What does he care about the objections of the other states? He does exactly what he wants to do and to hell with everyone else.

Isn’t that true?

Bush’s interest in the Hariri case is a perfect example of the administration’s disdain for the UN. Bush doesn’t care about Hariri. What he’s looking for is a way to implicate Syria so he will have a reason to expand the war beyond Iraq. Everyone knows this, and yet, the UN plays along anyway. The whole investigation is just political opportunism disguised as justice. Everyone in the Security Council knows what the real goal is---otherwise they wouldn’t have passed the resolution under Chapter 7, which makes the motion enforceable through military action.

The bottom line is that the UN is willing to push the Middle East closer to a region-wide conflagration just to accommodate the US. That says it all; doesn’t it?

But what makes Hariri so much more important than the hundreds of Iraqis who are slaughtered every week in the bloody occupation of Iraq? Why isn’t the UN investigating those crimes?

And, why is the UN participating in this (clearly) politically-motivated witch-hunt when they should be trying to enforce UN resolution 242? Wouldn’t that be the better path to regional peace?

Most people believe so.

And, if the UN is so concerned about peace; why not condemn the Bush administration for sending more arms to Beirut to continue the bombing of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp? Wouldn’t that make sense?

Don’t expect logic or evenhandedness from the UN. If that was the case, they’d denounce the Bush administration’s training of Palestinian and Lebanese security services in Jordan. Everyone knows that these troops are being trained so they can return to Beirut or the Occupied Territories to wreak havoc and (perhaps) trigger civil war.

Isn’t it the UN’s job to condemn this type of troublemaking?

And, if the United Nations objects to Bush’s plans for a “New Middle East” than why not say so? Why facilitate the ongoing bloodshed by remaining silent?

Why hasn’t there been an investigation into the deaths of the 1,100 Lebanese nationals who were killed during Israel’s 34-Day rampage? Many of them were bombed in their own homes or strafed on the clogged highways as they were trying to escape the south. Don’t they count---or does one have to be a friend of Washington or Tel Aviv to have his life protected?

The UN has emboldened White House “hawks” by steadily giving-ground on Iran’s nuclear program. This is a big mistake. A provocation with Iran could result in a decades-long war that would dwarf the fighting in Iraq and extend across the entire Middle East.

What right does the administration have to threaten and bully Iran?

Iran is still in “full compliance” with its treaty obligations under the NPT. According to the IAEA, there’s no evidence that Iran has diverted nuclear material to other projects nor is there any proof that they are developing nuclear weapons. They are fully within their rights to continue the development of “nuclear technology for peaceful purposes”. They should be left alone until there’s proof of wrongdoing. The lies and propaganda of the Bush administration cannot not be taken seriously. Lying is policy.

By caving in to pressure from the US, the UN is undermining the NPT and setting the stage for another nuclear arms race. Is this what they want?

Treaties are the foundation upon which the international order rests. If the terms of treaties are ignored because they don’t meet the geopolitical objectives of one or two of the member states, then why maintain the pretense that the world is governed by international law? Why not just convert the UN building into condos and go home?

The UN should reverse its position on Iran if only to defend its own relevance as an impartial guarantor of international law. But they won't---because they are afraid.

The Middle East is ablaze. This is no time to be quiet. The Bush administration has spread the war from Mogadishu to Kabul. Millions of people have been uprooted and forced to flee their homes. Iraq has produced four million refugees alone. It is the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time. The prisons are bulging, the people are unemployed and underfed, the water is toxic, the social-infrastructure has collapsed, and security is nonexistent. The entire Middle East has been doused with gas and, once again, Bush is reaching for the matches.

And what is the UN doing while this turmoil continues to grow?

Convening an investigation into the assassination of Rafik Hariri?!?

It’s an outrage. The siege of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp has persisted for two weeks without a word of protest from the United Nations.

Is it really that difficult to see that bombing civilian areas is morally unacceptable?

Consider this: What if a group of terrorists hid themselves in New York City; would the UN remain silent while downtown Manhattan was reduced to rubble?

Of course not. The very thought is absurd; just as the bombing of Gaza, Samara, Baghdad and Nahr al-Bared is absurd. Absurd and criminal.

The UN has done nothing to stop the violence. It hasn’t even tried. It has only added to the misery of the millions of people who foolishly seek its help.

Why hasn’t the Secretary-General spoken out against preemption? Isn’t that the reason the United Nations was created in the first place---to prevent another century of senseless aggression? Why hasn’t Ban Ki Moon issued a statement or a speech or even a word to repudiate this poisonous repackaging of unprovoked warfare?

Instead, just silence.

And, what about regime change, extraordinary rendition, targeted assassination, collective punishment, napalm, cluster-bombs, Daisy Cutters, the Salvador Option, enhanced interrogation, beatings, abductions, waterboarding, rape, sodomy, sexual humiliation, maiming, torturing, asphyxiating, cigarette burns, electric drills and every other medieval barbarity employed by the administration in its quest to “democratize” the Iraqi people?

Are none of these deserving of comment?

The United Nations has failed to preserve the peace or to see that people are treated with justice. It has only strengthened the dominance of the western powers while further subjugating the developing world. We’d all be better off if they just shut the doors and called it quits.