The U.S.-driven UN resolution passed by the Security Council provides only an internationalist fig-leaf for Washington’s occupation; the occupation remains illegal and in violation of the UN Charter. The new resolution does nothing to change the fundamental problems of the U.S. occupation of Iraq–its illegitimacy, its unilateralism, and its responsibility for so much destruction in Iraq and for the on-going crisis of violence in the country.
With Iraqi oil proving to be insufficient to finance the occupation of post-war Iraq and with U.S. taxpayers recoiling at covering the shortfall, the result of a donors’ conference in Madrid will decide whether the United States can stay on in Iraq. The donors’ decision, in turn, depends on whether the occupation turns from a unilateral to a multilateral form of corporate invasion.
Forget the spin you have been reading about the “failure” of the World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun. It was one of the most successful international meetings in years because it redefined how trade can benefit the poor and how the developing world can be real players in these negotiations. In fact, if policymakers and global trade negotiators were paying attention, Cancun could lead to trade talks that actually bring about fair trade, and the benefits to both the developing and the developed world that have long been promised.
Kofi Annan’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly was indeed a strong and incisive condemnation of unilateralism–and thus of the current U.S. administration and its hangers on. But in their eagerness to applaud the temerity of the Secretary General in twitching the eagle’s tail, some observers may miss the rest of his message: which is that despite its abuse by Bush and Blair, the United Nations Security Council must come to terms with the need for humanitarian intervention, and, moving some small but measured way toward the concerns of countries that feel themselves to be “uniquely vulnerable.”
“If you harbor a terrorist, if you support a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, you’re just as guilty as the terrorists. And the Taliban found out what we meant,” U.S. President George W. Bush told military personnel in Fort Stewart, Ga., on Sept. 12.
Information emerging from the intelligence community indicates that the Iraq Survey Team looking for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq is coming up empty.
As the Washington, DC area recovers from effects of Hurricane Isabel, President George W. Bush keeps trying to divert the potential “perfect storm” forming from the combination of the constant stream of bad news coming out of the Middle East and growing domestic discontent over the war and occupation in Iraq.
Pakistan’s national defense strategy centers on protecting the country’s nuclear weapons capability from a threat by one or more of three states that are currently working very closely – the United States, India and Israel. That strategy includes a nuclear first-strike policy.
American public reaction to the most recent bill of $87 billion for reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the rising human costs of occupation in Iraq, have concentrated the minds of the administration in a way that not even the reality on the ground could. It is a measure of how stark the impinging reality is that Washington even considered returning to the UN for yet another new and stronger resolution.
While widespread ransacking was happening in Iraq after Baghdad fell, the U.S. moved swiftly to secure the country’s oil facilities. But in the months since the official end of the war, general looting and sabotage have impeded even the oil industry, frustrating efforts to quickly return oil production to prewar levels.