The UN, particularly after the overthrow of the USSR, has been largely a puppet of the US imperialists, putting its rubber stamp on nearly everything the US wants. Some of the results have been completely disastrous. For example, during the 1990s, the UN, under heavy pressure from the US, approved of an economic sanctions program that killed about 1.5 million Iraqis. Technically this was all legal under the rubric of “international law” but, the question is, was international justice served? Not hardly, unless that is, you’re some kind of fascist.
The UN’s resistance to approve of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 - a resistance that listened to the many anti-war voices around the world - was one of the seldom moments where the UN was unified against US naked aggression. Unfortunately in the aftermath, the UN Security Council has voted in favor of US policies in Iraq.
Why did the UN vote against the US invasion of Iraq, but later move to give legitimacy to the US-controlled puppet government in Iraq? Did the UN simply say, “Oops, we should have backed the invasion”, as the right wing pundits would have it, or did the UN Security Council members merely cave in to US economic and military pressure? To believe the former is to be oblivious to the politics of the UN. The later is much more in line with the way the US has controlled the UN historically.
The illegitimacy of the new Iraqi government is illustrated in its appointment of Ahmed Chalibi as its Minister of Oil. Chalibi is a bank robber, who was wanted in Jordan for stealing a large sum of money (hundreds of million of dollars worth). He was also the US’s number one stooge who claimed that Iraq had WMDs. How is it that this criminal is appointed to such a high and strategic position in the Iraqi government?
The large turnout in the Jan 2005 election in Iraq was generated by the Iraqi voters’ desire for the US to leave. But it turns out that they were tricked. The US isn’t going to leave. In fact it’s going to build 4 huge military bases in Iraq.
The notion that a new government that is representative of the Iraqis exists in Iraq is ridiculous. Even if it were representative of the Iraqis, the mere fact that the US won’t leave Iraq shows that the new Iraqi government isn’t autonomous. What good is an elected government when it doesn’t have the autonomy to represent the electorate? Duh?
The US controls Iraq’s secret police. How’s that for autonomy? In addition to this the illegal privatization of Iraq’s public assets, which was ordered by the temporary illegal ruler of Iraq, Paul Bremer, is still intact. This was all done in secrecy without anyone every asking for the Iraqis’ consent. Imagine taking your kid to a public playground only to find out that it was secretly sold to a foreign investor on the cheap and that now the new owner is charging you to use it while he is collecting subsidies from the government to run it, subsidies paid for with your taxes. And to top it off, he’s bringing in foreign labor to maintain it while 70% of your country is unemployed.
Just because the US and the UN recognize a government does not mean that it is a legitimate government. The recent US-backed overthrow of the democratically elected government of Haiti, together with the UN “peace keepers” who shoot members of the democracy movement in Haiti, is another example of how international law is being used to serve international injustice.
We could go on and on about international law, but the question, when is does it serve justice? Slavery was legal at one time in the US; did the legality of it serve justice? For whom?
If my “roar” is just a meow, why is it that you pay so much attention to it? As for the success of “Communism” go to "
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7962"; and read “Cuba's Development” by Salim Lamrani written May 28, 2005. Cuba is ahead of the US in literacy and in medical aid to Latin America among other things. Who in Cuba is homeless? Cuba also trains more doctors in the third world. Cuba has accomplished all this while under the constant threat of US aggression. Cuba is dangerous to US imperialist interests because it is an example of an alternative to US neocolonial rule, a virus that is catching on all over Latin America and South America.
I’m tired of right wing idiots who claim to know so much about Communism yet they’ve never read any works by Marx or Lenin. I can’t help it if you believe everything the fascists wrote about Communism. Put down your copy of Mein Kampf for a moment and read the Communist Manifesto.
There is no proof that Stalin killed 90 million people or however many you want to make up. The secret vaults of the USSR were opened in 1993 and examined by international scholars. Had the USSR committed such crimes it would have showed up in the documents that were kept in these vaults. No such evidence has turned-up, nor have any mass graves been found, i.e., how do you hide 90 million bodies?
The propaganda that we read about the USSR today originated with the renegade Trotsky back in the late 1920s. The Nazis expanded on it. Nazi collaborator/US publisher William Randolf Hearst picked up the story and ran with it. The McCarthyites made careers out of it. Today we have fools like you who base everything they know about the USSR on Nazi propaganda.